By Kathy Gibson – As the world of work undergoes fundamental shifts, we are starting to realise that it’s not necessary for a worker to perform every process – at any rate, not a human worker.
The idea that computers are just as capable of performing certain tasks is quickly being replaced by the notion that they may actually be more appropriate, efficient and adept at certain repetitive tasks.
Graham Fry, MD of SpacePencil, explains that robotic process automation (RPA) is all about letting the technology take care of repetitive or mundane tasks, thus freeing up human workers to do the things that require more creativity or non-linear thinking.
“However, there is a lot of noise in the RPA market,” he points out. “You’ll hear a lot of blue sky thinking about what the technology could do; and see presentations extolling the features and benefits of the technology.
“But at the end of the day, we believe the decision to use RPA comes down, quite simply, to return on investment (ROI).”
ROI is about more than money, he adds.
“Before you can calculate an ROI, you need to know why you are looking to automate. The most common reason is to remove the human element from mundane tasks that people don’t want to do.
“Understand that the moment tasks become mundane, people do them in a rush and make mistakes – and there is a cost involved in that.”
A deployment process is vital as well, Fry says. “We know that, currently, 50% of RPA projects fail. The main reason for these failures is that organisations just dive in and start building an automated process without understanding what the process is or what the outcomes deliver in real terms.”
To calculate the ROI, he says the cost of automating needs to be understood against the cost of not automating.
“You need to know what the required ROI is in terms of money, frustration levels and everything else that goes into creating cost.
“What are the things that make it worthwhile to move to a manual process to an automated process?”
Time could be one of the variables that go into ROI. “You don’t need to run shifts when the computer is performing the tasks. The robot can run 24/7 with no leave and no other downtime.”
Consistency is another variable that is often left out of the equation, says Fry. “No matter how mundane the task is, the robot does it properly every time.”
Having said that, only certain processes are suitable for RPA. “This is not for every process: it needs to be a task that can be repeated with a pre-defined set of decision-making points. So a decision can be taken according to criteria that you’ve thought about before.”
Two crucially important elements to be considered when contemplating a move to RPA are the employee and the customer, Fry says.
“It’s important that RPA is not there to take away an employee’s job: it is supposed to make their job more rewarding by removing tasks they don’t need or want to do and allowing them to therefore do the tasks they do want to do that enhance both their work as well as the business’s efficiency.”
Customer satisfaction is equally important, he adds. “How many times have you called a contact centre and given all your details to the robot; then you get put through to a human operator and they ask you for the same information again.
“If this happens, you have to ask what the point of the RPA was. And go back to the drawing board to make sure the process being automated is suitable for a robotic system to perform.”
The deployment process itself must have measurable benefits, Fry point out. “Discover the process and work out if it is worthwhile to set it up as RPA.
“Then develop suitable test cases that everyone approves and understand. If you do this right, by the time you get to development it should be a simple process to roll out. If you’ve got the right toolset, that is.”
One way of deciding if the ROI is worth it is to look at the value of a particular task: typically those with a lower value are the ones worth automating, says Fry.
But equally, it could be worth investing in RPA for some tasks to remove the frustration they cause.
“So ROI comes down to time, money, frustration, and employee and customer satisfaction,” Fry explains.
“Remember, employees leave companies if their jobs are time-consuming and frustrating. These tasks could be cheap to automate but, cheap or expensive, they can save on employees and related business IP.”
The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the case for RPA, says Barry Buck, chief technology officer of SpacePencil.
“For many organisations, it comes down to risk. Having people in the office during a pandemic is a risk.
“Plus, the amount of infrastructure you need just to pass the standards and requirements for reopening the office is expensive. It’s not just hand sanitiser and thermometers, there needs to be another level of security.
“The less you need warm bodies in seats, the easier it is to maintain a level of productivity.
“In this environment, things that can be automated should be; while things requiring more intelligence can be done remotely.”
Enter Roboteur
Roboteur is an RPA platform and development environment that makes it simple and inexpensive to automate processes.
“With Roboteur, it is all about the ROI,” says Fry. “Anything else is noise. Why spend a million dollars to develop a pen that works in space when a pencil does the same job?”
He stresses that robotics and RPA are different. “RPA is not a robot that is going to take people’s jobs – it’s not sitting behind your keyboard. Instead, it is a set of code that runs in the computer.”
These bots are the pieces of logic that can automate tasks, Fry explains.
Roboteur, which is an RPA platform and development tool, was born out of frustration with the status quo in the automation software world, says Buck.
“What we were dealing with was many years of abstraction and design by committee. So we set out to make something where we had more control, with a visual programming platform and business tool to help users define automated tasks.
“We wanted to make it user-friendly with not much training required.
“Roboteur ticks all those boxes, plus it is granular enough to handle edge cases as well as more complex scenarios.
“Essentially, it is a visual progamming platform with a lot of intelligence built in. It is different from the status quo because it’s built on new technology and is distributable – you can run it as a desktop app or on a web browser, in the cloud or locally.
“It is a general automation tool that ticks all the boxes from the core outward. It builds out the conceptual layers that are the entry point for RPA tools; and, as a granular visual programming tool, it is powerful and complete.”
How Roboteur works
Roboteur’s stand-out feature has to be its ease of use, says Fry, with no code-based development required.
In fact, a business analyst could use the tool to map out the high-level process functions and a developer could quickly and easily complete the project.
“It really is as simple as that,” says Brian Little, chief marketing officer of SpacePencil. “The business analyst would know what the required outcome is, build high level block diagrams from inputs to desired outputs and the developer could then connect the dots to achieve the right outcomes.”
For simple automation tasks, the business or process owner could even develop their own tools. “You actually don’t have to be a trained process builder or developer to put a process together,” Little explains.
“We were aiming for a consumer-like product like those people are used to, without complex interfaces,” Buck says. “Really, we want to make something that doesn’t look or feel like homework, but something that is easy and pleasant to use. It needs to be an extension of the developer’s ability rather than a hindrance. It needs to make your life easier: when you open it, you want to use it.
“Most tools are really complex, even if your desired outcome is relatively simple. Our approach is to start off really simple, and you then build up layers of complexity. But if you want to automate a simple process, you can do it.
“At the same time, if you have an enterprise-level job to do, with layers of governance and compliance, you can do that too.”
Little describes this as being an extension of what is natural rather than the tedious interfaces that are more usual in this space. “Having something that is mystical, obscure and requires high levels of skills defeats the object of the exercise.
“You don’t want to have to use an atom bomb to open a walnut.”
By removing red tape and bureaucracy, Fry believed we will find that more things are automatable. “If people are able to automate tasks themselves, they will start doing it. This enables RPA for everyone.”
Roboteur is available either as an annual fee or monthly subscription. A trial version will be available soon.
Contact SpacePencil for a demo: www.spacepencil.com