Robotic Process Automation
Robotic process automation (RPA) is the use of computer software robots to handle repetitive, rule-based digital tasks such as filling in the same information in multiple places, reentering data, or copying and pasting. RPA creates and deploys a software robot with the ability to launch and operate other software.
RPA is used to automate various supply chain processes, including data entry, predictive maintenance and after-sales service support. RPA is used across industries to automate high volume, rote tasks. Financial firms were the first to adopt RPA, but there are now companies in many industries, including healthcare, retail, and manufacturing and more who use RPA technology.
Robotic process automation reduces labor costs as well as prevents human error. In one example, a large bank used 100 software bots to run 13 processes that handled 1.3 million requests in a year. This allowed the company to add capacity that equaled 200 full-time employees at just about 25 per cent the cost of recruiting more staff.
10 Examples of RPA practice:
- Help desk
- Call center operations
- Onboarding employees
- Data migration/ entry forms
- Claims administration
- Pulling data from multiple websites
- Credit card applications
- Expense management
- Scheduling system
- Sales and support process