As organizations look for ways and means to become more productive, more efficient we look for ways and means to achieve faster, more accurate work processes, to eliminate unnecessary steps or to design and implement alternative process steps.
Robotic automation is one such quest that business process services organizations are chasing these days. In the world of business processes - robotic automation is very different from the industrial automation that we find in manufacturing. In the BPS industry "robotic" is used a metaphor - akin to industrial automation - but done by software tools that produce generic automation of processes both business and clerical (that are generally repeatable, manual processes) and augment them into the client processes. Don't imagine moving robots, looking like humans that you may find in factory or manufacturing shop floors. Consistency, scalability and ability to deliver the process in a very secure manner are some of the key levers that drive the search for robotic automation in services as an alternative to manual repetitive work flows..
Will the cost be justified? Unlike industrial process automation the capital investment will be lower in services automation as the tools are reusable (or with some customization) and can be replicated over and over thereby bringing down the operating cost significantly. So you can expect a surge in robotic automation adoption in the coming year and beyond.
What would be the implication? Would there by mass scale redundancies created (lay offs'). Not really. As global businesses outsource more and more of their work the simple repetitive ones get automated and others move in. This would of course mean that you would need people to perform the more complicated stuff and some amount of re-skilling would happen.
At the same time you would need a whole new set of skills to create these automation tools and also to manage and run these tools. These would be more automation technology skills and skills to maintain these systems in steady state (operations).
As we enter the new financial year keep looking for the buzzword "robotic automation" in the quest for business process services becoming more agile, more efficient and moving up the value chain.
Robotic automation is one such quest that business process services organizations are chasing these days. In the world of business processes - robotic automation is very different from the industrial automation that we find in manufacturing. In the BPS industry "robotic" is used a metaphor - akin to industrial automation - but done by software tools that produce generic automation of processes both business and clerical (that are generally repeatable, manual processes) and augment them into the client processes. Don't imagine moving robots, looking like humans that you may find in factory or manufacturing shop floors. Consistency, scalability and ability to deliver the process in a very secure manner are some of the key levers that drive the search for robotic automation in services as an alternative to manual repetitive work flows..
Will the cost be justified? Unlike industrial process automation the capital investment will be lower in services automation as the tools are reusable (or with some customization) and can be replicated over and over thereby bringing down the operating cost significantly. So you can expect a surge in robotic automation adoption in the coming year and beyond.
What would be the implication? Would there by mass scale redundancies created (lay offs'). Not really. As global businesses outsource more and more of their work the simple repetitive ones get automated and others move in. This would of course mean that you would need people to perform the more complicated stuff and some amount of re-skilling would happen.
At the same time you would need a whole new set of skills to create these automation tools and also to manage and run these tools. These would be more automation technology skills and skills to maintain these systems in steady state (operations).
As we enter the new financial year keep looking for the buzzword "robotic automation" in the quest for business process services becoming more agile, more efficient and moving up the value chain.
No comments:
Post a Comment