This book brings together experts from research and practice. It includes the design of
innovative Robot Process Automation (RPA) concepts the discussion of related research fields
(e.g. Artificial Intelligence AI) the evaluation of existing software products and findings
from real-life implementation projects. Similar to the substitution of physical work in
manufacturing (blue collar automation) Robotic Process Automation tries to substitute
intellectual work in office and administration processes with software robots (white-collar
automation). The starting point for the development of RPA was the observation that - despite
the use of process-oriented enterprise systems (such as ERP CRM and BPM systems) - additional
manual activities are still indispensable today. In the RPA approach these manual activities
are learned and automated by software robots either by defining rules or by observing manual
activities. RPA is related to business process management machine learning and artificial
intelligence. Tools for RPA originated from dedicated stand-alone software. Today RPA
functionalities are also integrated into elaborated process management suites. From a
conceptual perspective RPA can be structured into input components (sensors in the wide sense)
an intelligence center and output components (actuators in the wide sense). From a strategic
perspective the impact of RPA can be related to the support of existing tasks the complete
substitution of human activities and the innovation of processes as well as business models.
At present high expectations are related to the use of RPA in the improvement of
software-supported business processes. Manual activities are learned and automated by software
robots that interact with existing applications via the presentation layer. In combination with
artificial intelligence (AI) as well as innovative interfaces (e. g. voice recognition) RPA
creates a novel level of automation for office and administration processes. Its benefit
potential reaches a return on investment (ROI) up-to 800% that is documented in various case
studies.
