What are the Benefits of Robotic Process Automation (RPA)?
This question that is often asked. The first part of a typical response focuses on cost savings but actually there are other factors which are potentially more important.
The benefits can be categorised into two groups, Productivity and Quality.
RPA solutions are effective for processes that are repeatable and have predictable interactions with IT applications.
Why not amend the IT applications and remove the need for RPA?
Well such processes typically lack the scale or value to warrant automation via traditional core IT systems development.
In fact where Cloud applications are involved there may not be any provision for custom development.
RPA tools can improve the efficiency of performing these business processes without changing the underlining IT systems. The automation can be described as “Non-invasive”.
Deployed RPA software is normally called a “Robot”. These Robots do what a human can do by interacting with IT applications through a user interface and following simple rules to make decisions.
The software robots perform the “Manual Work” that people would otherwise undertake.
Unlike a human, Robots do not need to sleep so they can work 24 hours, as they do not have holidays or go sick they can operate 365 days a year. In reality, there will be some periods of down time to allow for software upgrades.
In a typical week, a person might work 40 hours whereas an RPA Robot can work 7 x 24 = 168 hours. That is 4.2 times the capacity of a person.
RPA Robots work at computer speed, they are up to 10 times faster to interact with the application User Interface depending on the performance capability of the system.
If the RPA Robot is performing the work, the person is available to do other work. This has increased the productivity of the business. The process is more “Efficient” as it requires less resources from the business to complete the tasks.
Unlike a human, RPA Robots do not get tired and slow down, do not lapse in concentration and make errors, RPA Robots deliver actions consistently which increases the quality of the outcome, human error is eliminated. Research indicates that in a typical repetitive task, humans will on average have a 4% error rate, the costs associated with correcting such errors can be significant.
An extra benefit in some circumstances, is that RPA Robots treat everybody the same so details on “VIPs” or “Sensitive information” is not leaked through a casual conversation. This confidentiality of RPA Robots is also a benefit where there is staff change and potential for information to go with staff to competitors.
RPA Robots can easily create a log of all the actions they complete which can be used to monitor activity levels in real time. Asking a person to do a task and log all the details about the task would increase the time taken to perform the work significantly. It is a factor that is really important for compliance type tasks.
It is the following task qualities which make a process good option to automate:
Entire end-to-end processes can be performed by RPA Robots with very little human interaction, typically people manage the exceptions.
Ether Solutions believes that the typical 80:20 rule should be applied when considering process automation, so that manual activity is used to process exceptions and the more difficult / complex cases that occur in the processing.
To fully realise the benefits from automation, the staff time that has been released from the tasks which have been automated, needs to be re-deployed effectively for the overall benefit of the business.
The above infographic conveys the different aspects that can contribute to the overall Return on Investment (ROI) that can be achieved from an RPA implementation. The text from the infographic is repeated below in order ensure it is available for screen readers, etc., where the extraction of text from images is difficult.
RPA - Robotic Process Automation, delivers benefits for organisations by using software robots to replace human activity on computer systems. The robots simulate reading, typing and clicking.
Although this can start as a simple calculation by considering wider factors such as staff holiday, sickness, training costs, management costs, etc., it can become complex.
The benefit that is delivered from increased consistency with the removal of the human efforts can also be difficult to quantify. An analysis of the costs to correct such errors in previous months is probably the most reliable method to quantify the value of the benefit.
If the automation the business process enables the timescale for when the work is undertaken to be altered, there can be both specific benefits that are directly attributable to the change plus indirect benefits in other business processes.
Ether Solutions provides an RPA ROI Calculator that enables an estimate of the benefits arising from the automation to made. For most RPA projects the ROI is sufficiently strong that precise calculation of the smaller benefits is not necessary.
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