Industries from manufacturing to banking are leveraging Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to streamline repetitive tasks and improve accuracy. RPA is a source of operational efficiency and frees up talent to perform higher-level job responsibilities. - BY KAREN WHITE

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) was once thought of as a means of streamlining production lines in manufacturing plants. Now, RPA is used in many industries, rapidly transforming business operations in production and service industries such as finance and banking, healthcare, retail, and supply chain and logistics. It enables the automation of rules-based, mundane, repetitive employee tasks, many of which are vulnerable to errors. RPA uses software “bots” that mimic human actions with software systems and applications. Tech systems can work faster, more efficiently and accurately, and are scalable. The advantages include reduced errors, increased productivity, improved customer experience, and cost savings. The future trend is the integration of RPA with artificial intelligence and machine learning, taking RPA functionality to a higher level. When added to business operations, employees are freed up to perform higher-level work that is more strategic and enables them to develop skills that support career advancement.

Intelligent Automation Streamlines Business Operations

RPA is one intelligent automation tool that can be combined with technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things as its development continues – and its use is booming. Grand View Research found the 2023 robotic process automation market size had a value of $2,942.7 million. It is projected to grow rapidly during the 2023-2030 period by 39.9%. The COVID-19 pandemic was a significant influence, forcing businesses to find new ways to automate business workflow. “Some of the major features of RPA for which businesses are adopting RPA include improved productivity, optimizing performance, integrating new technologies, generating higher returns, and moving business processes across the enterprise.”

TechTarget explains that RPA technology creates bots, software programs that can “log into applications, enter data, calculate and complete tasks, and copy data between applications or workflows as required.” The RPA-generated bots can understand what is displayed, navigate systems, input keystrokes, identify and extract data, and understand and perform repetitive tasks. When RPA is combined with AI and machine learning, it can understand the context of the content it works with by reading handwriting or text with optical character recognition, extracting information through natural language processing and capturing context from images. For example, insurance companies now have apps where customers making a claim can upload pictures of a vehicle, and the RPA estimates the amount of damage. Manufacturing companies have been using RPAs on production lines for years but also need to automate back-office processes. These processes include creating purchase orders, managing inventory, processing invoices, and communicating with customers. RPA can create the critical bills of materials (BOM) for new products. The BOM contains information such as raw materials, sub-assemblies, parts required, and component quantities. RPA can also automate shipping scheduling, track shipments, and automatically look up rates from multimodal carriers. Manufacturing may have led the way in using RPA, but it is now found in most industries. Banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) have many activities that are ideal for RPA. For example, a top U.S. bank was doing a lot of manual processing of checks and loan applications, and the probability of errors was high. In addition, spikes in activities each month were causing resource planning issues. The bank chose Celsior Technologies to automate the processes.

The system uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read checks and loan forms and RPA to validate and store the data. If discrepancies are detected, feedback is sent to an employee. The RPA system reduced the time to process 100 checks from one day to one hour and eliminated almost all errors. The BFSI industry uses RPA to automate accounts payable, mortgage loan and credit card approvals, and insurance claims.

Simplifying Healthcare Services Complexity with Digital Workers

The healthcare industry is also turning to technology to assist with this sector's voluminous and complex activities. Applications include automating patient eligibility and registration, verification of insurance, scheduling patient appointments in coordination with the physician’s schedule, managing electronic health records, admissions and discharge processes, and processing insurance claims. It can also assist with automating test report generation and updating results to the Electronic Health Record. The intelligent automation can also demonstrate regulatory compliance and support integrated care with other healthcare providers, including social services. As RPA is utilized as a front office improvement technology, it is converging with artificial intelligence and machine learning to create “digital workers.” The integration of technologies is expanding the usage. For example, digital workers can now support the healthcare supply chain, tracking orders against delivery times, logging deliveries, maintaining inventory records, and automatically reordering products. AI and machine learning can use RPA data to take automation to the next level for data analysis and forecasting, and to improve clinical trial eligibility procedures. Digital workers can process tens of thousands of applications for clinical trial participation in a few hours. As biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies strive to make clinical trials more inclusive, digital workers can play a significant role in ensuring the participation of diverse people who have often been excluded. Also, the ability to collect large amounts of trial data for assessment could lead to shorter lead times for new products and treatments.

Name an Industry

The retail industry uses RPA in many ways to meet customer expectations for a faster, more efficient, error-free shopping experience. As e-commerce sales continue to increase, RPA can help large and small businesses grow through improved customer service. Use cases include invoice processing, payables, customer support, and call center processes, but many more applications exist. RPA can provide real-time data sales analytics and support demand-supply planning, as well as marketing planning such as promotions and product categorization. It can automate and improve coordination between suppliers, distributors, and customers, ensuring optimized inventory control and waste minimization.

Name an industry, and its enterprises are using RPA - accounting, human resources, telecommunications, and more. The software companies developing and selling the technologies predict the top 2024 RPA trend will be the integration of generative AI, which will improve the ability of bots to adapt to unexpected situations, better understand unstructured data and make decisions based on context. Another prediction is that RPA will become less of a standalone tool and more of a feature of a larger automation platform. Also expected is improvement in the data systems RPA relies on, with disparate data sources becoming integrated into a cohesive data model. RPA is going to increasingly change workflows, enabling organizations to develop and utilize talent in more strategic roles, giving them opportunities to grow in their positions, do more interesting work and pursue career advancement.