Smart Industry 2/2018

4-Step Model of Intelligent Process Automation
From simple batch processing
to self-teaching intelligent systems
photo ©: Horváth & Partners
Complexity
1
Robotic Process
Automation (RPA)
Software robots
automate repetitive and/
or rules-based processes
using structured data
2
Cognitive
Automation
Complex processes
are automated using
unstructured data
with the help of
machine learning
Degree of automation
3
Digital
Assistants
Software robots
utilize both voice and
text input (chatbots)
to perform tasks based
on natural language
processing
4
Autonomous
Agents
Complex software
systems utilize
deep learning
to reach decisions
autonomously
and initiate processes
to automate key
functions
Degree of artificial intelligence
future thinking to existing facilities
that look nothing like that. In fact, he
notes, many of his company’s sensors
are found in steel mills, sewage treatment
facilities, and offshore oil plants.
Sean Gough, director of product management
at the company says the
route from IoT sensors to RPA in all
those facilities usually starts with local
intelligence, where initial analysis
can help reduce the deluge of data to
something more manageable. “People
are working to get to the right
level of local analytics so that they are
transmitting and analyzing the right
level of data at each layer,” he says.
Certainly, getting data to where it is
needed is a challenge. Hard-wiring
sensors used to be standard practice,
but particularly where customers
want to retrofit, “the only practical
method is often to use radio,” says
Gough. He says the company is now
combining sensors and radio in a single
device.
According to Smith, customers want
the ability to integrate as much as
possible. In response, the company
is making sensors that are digital and
adding microprocessors, primarily for
self-test, so they can know whether
the sensors are operating properly,
he explains. But the desire to process
more at the edge is likely to increase.
How much value can you get from
automation? “A lot of our customers
are on a discovery mission to understand
how this will help them,” Smith
says. “We think there is no limit,” he
adds.
Making the case
Both RPA and IoT have those who
claim they can demonstrate strong
ROI. Of course, the specifics vary.
Some projects produce stellar results
and others are not so impressive.
However, according to a Tata Consulting
Services blog, RPA is demonstrating
ROI “in about 25 percent of the
time required for a business process
workflow solution and 16 percent of
the time taken for enterprise application
integration to demonstrate significant
value.”
A recent article posted by ISG Research,
“Is IT a Catalyst or Adversary of
Your RPA Initiative?,” revealed the results
of a survey of 549 European business
leaders regarding their adoption
of RPA technology and services. One
finding was that in EMEA, the CIO is
usually responsible or accountable for
the RPA buying decision (81 percent)
but 57 percent of organizations surveyed
said they were stymied in their
RPA endeavors by “Lack of IT support”
and “Governance/compliance” issues.
The road to RPA
The evolution of
robotoc process
automation can be
seen as a series of
steps towards everincreasing
levels of
automation and
artificial intelligence.
The article’s authors, Keri Smith and
Aparna Gajanan, observe “if you consider
automation a team sport, both
the business side and the IT organization
must play together to advance
the ball.”
They also observed that though CIOs
often have responsibility for RPA buying,
implementation is often handled
by others, including CFOs and shared
services leaders. Furthermore, despite
a widespread belief that RPA is
“intuitive” and doesn’t require IT involvement,
in fact “RPA is not a plugand-play
capability; it requires people
with technical and business skills to
plan, develop, deploy and manage it.”
Earlier this year, ISG also weighed in
on the broader outlook for advanced
business use of RPA in Europe, which
they expect will double by 2020, as
companies seek to improve customer
experience and streamline their finance
operations.
ISG and Automation Anywhere, an
RPA software provider, recently surveyed
European business leaders and
found that that fewer than 10% of
companies will not have begun working
on RPA by 2020, while those at an
advanced stage will have doubled.
While Europe has been slower to
adopt technologies like automation
than other markets, according
15