What is RPA? Explaining This Process Automation Technology
Robotic Process Automation or RPA is an exciting tool for companies with the aim of saving costs and ‘mechanizing’ operations, which leads to greater productivity and efficiency of the different departments.
This article explains what you need to know about RPA and how it is applied in different areas of day-to-day corporate life.
What is RPA?
Robotic Process Automation or RPA is a technology for automating tasks. In doing so, humans stop interacting with machines, and robots, after configuration, are in charge of managing certain tasks.
In addition, RPA can be combined with other technologies, such as Machine Learning (learning from the actions performed by humans) or Artificial Intelligence.
The Benefits of RPA
Robotic Process Automation is used to achieve all these advantages:
- Faster and more secure automations, with the possibility of multiple users working on them. Tools such as Microsoft Power Automate help streamline workflows.
- Centralization of employees in more creative and productive tasks.
- Cost savings and, at the same time, increased profitability: tasks are done more accurately and with less chance of error.
- Reduction of the time required to complete time-consuming tasks, allowing results to be achieved sooner.
With these features, the RPA is suitable for business areas such as:
- Finance and Accounting: Those administrative tasks that are repeated with a certain periodicity (month, quarter, year…) are automated to be done in a small amount of time, much smaller than it would take a person.
- Customer Service: Users’ questions are answered instantly with a series of preset phrases.
- Human Resources: The creation of employee files or payrolls can be automated.
- Data Collection: A search for a term of interest is programmed, and the RPA crawls the web with a predetermined frequency to find it. Data storage can also be done using RPA technology.
RPA in Software
RPA is configurable software for robots to perform certain tasks automatically. Ideally, the interface should be easy to use in order to facilitate the work of the human programmer.
RPA in Systems
RPA applications are integrated into the systems that the company has in operation in different departments so that no one works in isolation. This creates coordination that makes work more efficient and increases machine and human productivity.
Why Should You Bet on RPA
You have already seen the cost and time-saving advantages of RPA. This technology does not eliminate jobs, but, as we said before, it allows you to keep your staff in more creative and productive tasks: it is a machine that takes care of the tedious tasks so as not to waste human talent. And what’s more, it does it faster.
At Plain Concepts, we have a long experience with RPA technologies in business applications, web, and other areas. We will meet with you to understand your needs and diagnose the situation. As we develop RPA solutions, we will test them with you to check that they work according to your wishes.
Plain Concepts has worked on process automation in many different sectors. For a pharmaceutical company that wanted to improve its drug treatment processes, we created a machine learning model that analyzed data to calculate the ideal heating, cooling, and drying time for drugs. This optimized production by 7% and reduced manufacturing time by 20%. At the same time, reporting was automated. All this contributed to saving time and money.
Also related to pharmaceuticals, for the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Health Products, we automated the manual labeling system for drug data sheets. By eliminating manual labeling, there is less chance of errors.
RPA can also be applied in your industry. Explore what the business application should look like to help you do this.