RPA technology where a robot takes care of simple repetitive tasks
As office workers, we all go through the rookie stage. But those who have just joined the company are usually given simple repetitive tasks such as photocopying, pasting spreadsheet data, document organization, etc. Of course, going through such repetitive tasks will get you acquainted with the generalities of company work, but even once you get used to it, you still have to process repetitive tasks totally unrelated to anything creative for a while.
Actually, simple repetitive tasks take up 30~50% of office work (Source: POSCO Research Institute). Even if you are not a rookie, you still have to go through repetitive tasks if you are working in an office. All companies stress creativity, but there are many simple repetitive tasks on the other hand.
What is RPA?
RPA technology automatically takes care of simple, repetitive tasks required for work.
‘RPA (Robotics Process Automation)’ refers to a stage of office automation where the robot automatically takes care of simple repetitive tasks. This robot is a software; it will take care of opening emails, attachment, sending, organizing files and folders, copying and pasting, web data crawling (gathering), the four fundamental arithmetic operations and processing, SNS statistics data collecting, and other simple repetitive tasks that are required for work.
RPA goes beyond simple macro and helps out with people’s simple repetitive tasks. It begins from imitating humans with AI. For example, if a person saves A condition email attachment file in B folder and separately saves certain cell values from the spreadsheet, such behavior patterns will be made into data. And through AI, this will be learned; when conditions are met, the robot will automatically take care of the task. This was a simple example, but complex processes that may lead to mistakes if done by human can be resolved when the robot does it.
RPA’s characteristics and advantages
RPA technology is changing the way of work, so we can focus on more creative tasks.
People say that the 1990s and the time before that are the era of ‘ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)’. It refers to organizational work such as optimizing business resources and innovating work process. After the 2000s, we have seen companies that take care of such work from the outside through outsourcing. But within the company, we still needed to take care of simple repetitive tasks.
The RPA era took off in 2014. The biggest advantage of RPA in the IT marketing is high worker satisfaction as well as not having to establish a huge infrastructure. Unlike other IT projects that require replacing or transferring general services, you only need to implement the software on the existing server or PC. It can be done in weeks, months at most, and can quickly calculate ROI (return on investment).
If we add the digitalization or public cloud onto this as they are popular among companies these days, there’s no need to install the software on the company server. In such a case, it will be even quicker for RPA to be implemented in companies. According to the 2017 ‘Ernst&Young’ data, compared to ERP, ROI is higher by more than 10-fold, and the difficulty of implementation is lower by 1/50 standards.
Worker satisfaction level is also high. Usually, we say that if robots are developed, humans will be replaced. At the recent HR cloud workday conference, there was an announcement about “it’s more like changing of tasks”. In other words, simple repetitive tasks will be left to robots, and humans will take care of the more creative work.
Korea also has more companies that have implemented RPA since 2017 with the weekly 52 working hour system. According to POSCO Research Institute data, more than 78% of departments that have experienced RPA wish further implementation. Regardless of simple repetitive tasks, various companies are opting for this technology as it shows efficiency in hospital work and data corporations, places prone to human mistakes. Now we will look into global RPA implementation cases.
RPA implementation cases
Many companies are increasing work efficiency and decreasing errors through the implementation of RPA
Singtel, a Singaporean communication company, pursued RPA as one of their digital transformation strategies. More than 200 robots are input for core tasks such as monitoring communication network, reporting errors, internet shopping, TV monitoring, etc. About 900 internal tasks are also being processed through RPA; robots are as much part of the organization as humans.
Walmart, a huge supermarket chain in U.S., implemented RPA in their HR and uses about 500 robots in answering employees’ questions, drafting documents, searching, etc. Travel booking companies such as AMEX gold business travel and Virgin Trains have implemented RPA in ticket cancellation and refund, etc., to minimize human mistakes. Virgin Trains especially reduced its manual work by 85%.
America’s communication company AT&T uses more than 1,000 software robots for processing order data, drafting customer report, etc. Aside from the above various global automobile companies, advertisement companies, etc., have employed robots to create a work environment where no one has to work late hours. It differs from place to place, but some companies even have 1 robot per person.
RPA implemented in medical field will reduce faulty diagnosis.
America’s Anderson Cancer Center uses RPA in cancer diagnosis and have reduced its faulty diagnosis rate by 20%, and law firm BakerHostetler automated their case analysis with RPA which takes up most hours for lawyers. Coway, a rental company, uses 70 robots for rental account status monitoring, sales performance statistics, rental asset status, billing history viewing, etc., to improve their work process speed by more than 50%.
In Korea, KB Finance, Hana Finance, Shinhan Finance, and more finance companies are the most active users of RPA. For example, banks use RPA for detecting fraud, recognizing abnormal transaction, client registration, credit card issuance, etc. Insurance companies can implement it for insurance claims while medical field can make use of it in automating countless report work, new product registration, etc. Manufacturers will be able to analyze raw material cost, register venders, manage bonds, etc. by implementing RPA.
Hyundai AutoEver actively implements RPA technology.
Korean IT company Hyundai AutoEver is also implementing RPA. Hyundai AutoEver has automated part of simple tasks in finance/accounting, HR, purchase/export, document/report/data areas with chat bots, machine learning, AI, etc. RPA can also be used when it is difficult to directly handle or give orders to subcontractors. In such a case, work problem can be resolved while being more efficient.
Hyundai AutoEver’s RPA is more aggressive than that of others. It implements the development robot which supports automation realization function without complex coding, the unmanned execution robot that carries out self-automation in unmanned system (back office), the manned execution robot that works with humans in the user system (front office), and the manager robot that oversees all of these robots. The manger robot takes care of all robots, and its goal is to control process, including scheduling, overload monitoring as well as asset management and remote control.
Future goal is to standardize file format within the group. Recently when undergoing transitioning the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system of Hyundai Motor Company’s SAP (Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing) to a cloud-based format by 2026, Hyundai AutoEver took care of infrastructure establishment and operation. Standardizing company files and input method makes it easier to use robots or for people to use. It’s about making it easier to do creative work for humans with robots together. Hyundai Motor Group calls it ‘One-IT’.
RPA outlook
According to Deloitte’s research in 2017 with about 400 companies, they showed more than 90% satisfaction rate with RPA implementation in areas including reacting to regulations, work accuracy, productivity, flexible human resources management, etc. The global RPA market was about 271 million dollars in 2016 and is expected to be 1224 million dollars by 2021. As mentioned above, RPA is not a technology that will replace humans but a way to increase our work efficiency. Companies that implement RPA can pursue productivity increase by allocating employees who have done simple repetitive tasks to positions suited to their personal traits. RPA technology is expected to maintain existing productivity and develop to better our work and life balance.
Written by Jong-cheol Lee (Byline Network)
