Robotics the New Process Reengineering

Automation and Collaborative Robotics, 2020

Although the subtitle of this book is "A Guide to the Future of Work," this chapter will explore the challenges of automation and some solutions that have a legitimate claim to affect the present and the future of work. As we will show in this chapter, automation is not a series of distinct moments but a continuum of strategies and technologies that intend to increase levels of automation and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business operations. Some of the strategies and technologies we discuss are already being deployed; others are only at the initial stages but will have an impact on who does what work in the future. Increasing automation has been a goal of information technology since the earliest attempts to use computing to handle vast amounts of data and repetitive tasks. If we look at some of the significant places on the continuum of automation, we can gain perspective. In the 1940s, Colossus, one of the earliest computers, automated the reading and comparison of vast amounts of encoded cipher text that helped humans to decrypt secret messages. At the next significant point, in the 1960s, along the continuum record keeping and particularly business ledgers led to a need to further

arXiv (Cornell University), 2020

International Journal for Quality Research

Robotics is very prevalent today in various fields and industries. Although there are many guidelines for its successful implementation, many companies have problems with it. This paper aims to give an overview of case studies that deal with the implementation of robotics and, accordingly, to deal with its future sustainability and enable companies to decide on process automatisation easier. The literature search included a term search: Autonomous robots, Lean manufacturing, and Industry 4.0 (and its technologies). Some cases are presented and accordingly, a method for deciding on implementing and integrating robots in one company is given.

IEEE Access

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) performs high-volume tasks such as checking invoices. However, the governance and maintenance of large-scale software robot environments can be challenging when robot servers perform automatized tasks simultaneously for customer organizations with complex programming rules, dedicated parameters, and dependencies on timetables. A multivocal literature review (MLR) was conducted to explore whether there are 1) mechanisms to improve software robot maintenance in large-scale robot environments, 2) or software robot maintenance practices for scalable RPA in organizations providing shared services, 3) or governance models for optimizing the performance of software robot maintenance, and 4) is the Center of Excellence (CoE) one of the success factors concerning large-scale robot environments. By doing this, 5) we found eleven functional requirements for the monitoring tool to support maintenance in a large-scale environment. In addition, we adapted them to the RPA monitoring tool abilities for the Finnish Government Shared Services Centre for Finance and HR (Palkeet). As a result, the eleven functional requirements and the monitoring tool abilities are adaptable for other large-scale environments to improve software robot maintenance. However, commercial monitoring tools for RPA maintenance do not fulfil functional requirements, and organizations in large-scale environments must develop their monitoring tools. Based on MLR, either in-house or outsourced CoE seems to be one of the success factors in RPA maintenance in large-scale environments. INDEX TERMS Center of excellence, CoE, governance, maintenance, robotic process automation, RPA. I. INTRODUCTION 18 Organizations are increasingly interested in improving pro-19 cesses by utilizing robotic process automation (RPA) to 20 maintain competitiveness in a rapidly changing technology 21 environment. RPA refers to the programming of activities and 22 transactions that automatically repeats the performance of a 23 similar task on data sets or/and systems according to specific 24 rules, replacing human work. RPA is defined as a ''precon-25 figured software instance that uses business rules and pre-26 defined activity choreography to complete the autonomous 27 execution'', where the execution is ''a combination of pro-28 cesses, activities, transactions, and tasks in one or more 29 unrelated software systems to deliver a result or service with 30 The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Hongli Dong. a human exception management'' [1]. The automated process 31 can reduce errors and costs from manual work and perform 32 repetitive routine tasks in agile, influencing the efficiency and 33 quality of the operations. The RPA benefits are apparent; for 34 example, software robots can work 24/7, increase productiv-35 ity and daily throughput, improve accuracy, increase client 36 satisfaction, and decrease operating risks [2, pp. 11 and 12]. 37 Software robots of the RPA solutions ''mimic'' human 38 interactions with systems to perform specific tasks in 39 processes [1], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. Usually, soft-40 ware robots perform routine tasks that are rule-based, repet-41 itive, well-structured, and high-volume [2, pp. 32], [5], [7], 42 [10]. Furthermore, RPA is non-invasive: it does not change 43 the involved software systems because the robot utilizes the 44 software systems like a user, but automation is sitting ''on top 45 of them'' [7], [8], [10].

International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Technology, 2017

In the current business environment, robotics is being universally used in manufacturing as it helps increase productivity and minimize the cost of production. It has been observed that many industries, such as manufacturing, healthcare, and hospitality, have been adopting this technology to ensure a task's performance in an effective manner. Robots can eliminate unpleasant tasks which are dangerous and have high risk. It helps free up the labour to focus on skill required activities so that business efficiency can be improved. It has been stated that the use of robotics to complement the job of the employees will support maximizing production efficiency in various business sectors. Robotics is known to be an emerging technology that can bring stability to business functions. The research has identified robotics technology's role in different business sectors such as healthcare, hospitality, and agriculture. It has also provided an insight into the link of technology with business effectiveness and efficiency. The technology has both advantages and disadvantages in its use that must be considered by the business before implementation.

Proceedings of the 21st Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2021), 2021

This communication discusses the resulting changes in the field of design project management generated by the industry of the future and its promises, with a special focus on collaborative robotics. Among the guiding issues of this work, we will focus on the importance of including such an intention to cobotize some or all of the tasks initially assigned to human operators, during the strategic stakes of the design process and to instruct and support it by the potential contributions of a bottum up approach centered on the real activities, mobilized and deployed during the realization of the tasks which are objects of cobotization. This discussion is based on an industrial case study, aimed at assisting a finishing workstation (the last stage of a production process) for fragile mechanical parts used in the manufacture of metal parts for the aeronautics sector.

Societies, 2016

INFORMATIK 2019, 2019

The initial idea of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is the automation of business processes through the presentation layer of existing application systems. For this simple emulation of user input and output by software robots, no changes of the systems and architecture is required. However, considering strategic aspects of aligning business and technology on an enterprise level as well as the growing capabilities of RPA driven by artificial intelligence, interrelations between RPA and Enterprise Architecture (EA) become visible and pose new questions. In this paper we discuss the relationship between RPA and EA in terms of perspectives and implications. As work-in-progress we focus on identifying new questions and research opportunities related to RPA and EA.

IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 2009

2016