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A Primer on Intelligent Automation, Robotics and Resolving Bias in AI/ML Solutions – Part 1

  Artificial Intelligence   November 5, 2020

What is Intelligent Automation or Intelligence Infused Automation?

Intelligent Automation (IA) = RPA + AI

In simple terms,

Intelligent Automation (IA) is a combination of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for end-to-end business process automation and digital transformation.

Intelligent Automation spans the entire automation journey –
Discovery,
Automation and
Optimization

That is, automating any front- or back-office business process, and assigning work across combined human-bot teams.
As against traditional automation which relies on pre-defined instructions and structured data inputs, Intelligent Automation assists with each step of the automation cycle, and then continues to ‘learn’ and improve over time.

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How Does IA Work?

The IA cycle begins with process discovery, where AI-powered tools can automatically observe the work activities people are doing, identifies optimal workflows, and proposes an automation path.
At the automation stage, intelligent automation applies AI to access unstructured information, including human chat conversations, audio, and video.
This is a crucial capability to making end-to-end automation possible because in a typical enterprise, unstructured information represents 80% of all business data.

The outputs are a self-adjusting, end-to-end automation of any ‘fungible’ business process, that helps to reduce exceptions and bot management over time.

RPA + AI allows automation of complex business tasks. In fact, augmenting RPA with AI technologies expands the possibilities of business process automation – cognitive bots can reason and make decisions, ‘learning’ on-the-job to become valuable resources in a modern, human-digital workforce.

What are the benefits of Intelligent Automation?

The transformative potential of IA is that it creates an opportunity to reimagine how businesses operate by integrating technology, work processes, and people.

What are some of the typical Industry Use Cases of Intelligent Automation?

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector is using IA for delivering economies of scale to their customers.

Financial Services companies are using automation for stock trading, payment processing and back-office reconciliation functions.

Healthcare providers are using IA for patient record management, billing, surgical processes, improving post-op recovery outcomes and so on.

The Insurance sector is using automation for speedier claims processing, remittances, and statutory reporting.

The Life Sciences industry is deploying automation solutions for accelerating research on life-saving drugs and improving the functioning of medical devices and equipment.

The Manufacturing sector is employing automation tools to help human workers in inventory management, order reconciliation, transportation, invoicing, and numerous administrative tasks.

The Telecommunications industry is using IA for delivering remote/automated service, installation of software patches and updates, and predictive maintenance of equipment.

Governments are using automation for speeding up processing of permits, licences, benefits applications and producing reports.

Call to Action! – Adopting Best Practices for Adoption of RPA

Six suggested best practices that can be adopted while implementing RPA solutions are listed below for IT and business leaders –

1) Plan Broadly – Not only have a clear set of IT/digital transformation objectives that your organization wants to achieve out of automation, develop a strategic plan for change management. Consider all the important details of the current situation and appoint change champions to deliver successful outcomes.

2) Select the Process/Processes to be Automated Smartly – Select those business processes that are best suited to automation by identifying:

  • Predictable and well-documented activities with defined operational costs
  • Processes with low exception rates, not needing complex human intervention
  • Activities where the benefits/savings can be easily quantified in terms of cost savings, better accuracy, faster response time etc.
  • High volume/high frequency processes.

3) Lay Stress on Collaboration – Be careful not to leave the robotics implementation on the IT team members/developers alone. For successful implementation, organizations must include end-users who are proficient in the actual processes undergoing automation.

4) Provide Sufficient Training – Explain to your employees what your automation project is to be used for, how software bots will be designed to assist in their day-to-day responsibilities and increase the value of their output. It works well to first ‘train the trainers’ and then let them spread the message to the rest of the staff, including what automation can deliver and what it cannot.

5) Establish a Core Team – A senior executive with a ‘bird’s eye view’ of all the business functions and processes should be appointed to head a Core Automation Team to decide ‘what to automate, when, for what outcomes’. The core team should include external consultants, especially in the case of large, company-wide projects, to bring in objectivity into the planning and implementation cycle and evaluation of results.

6) Do create a Test Plan and a ‘Plan B’ – Develop the proposed automation solution and test under different environments (for example, remote location users), before seeking approval for full-scale deployment. A fall-back path to success in the form of a ‘Plan B’ should also be prepared in case new insights/feedback require a rework of the RPA solution.

Recommended Readings:

  • “AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order” by Kai-Fu Lee
  • “Coders: Who They Are, What They Think and How They Are Changing Our World” by Clive Thompson
  • “Own the A.I. Revolution: Unlock Your Artificial Intelligence Strategy to Disrupt Your Competition” by Neil Sahota and Michael Ashley
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this feature article are of the author. This is not meant to be an advisory to purchase or invest in products, services or solutions of a particular type or, those promoted and sold by a particular company, their legal subsidiary in India or their channel partners. No warranty or any other liability is either expressed or implied.
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