New improvements to how businesses can operate more efficiently are constantly popping up. One such addition that is making waves across the digitally-dominated workplaces of today is robotic process automation (RPA). RPA is consistently seen as one of the fastest-growing types of intelligent automation software. At its core, RPA improves upon all things related to productivity by automating traditionally manual human interaction tasks. This brief guide will break down the major types of robotic process automation and how they can impact your business.
What Are the 3 Types of RPA?
The three most popular types of RPA used across multiple industries are attended automation, unattended automation, and hybrid RPA. Before we dive into each type, we need to mention that the field of RPA continues to evolve, and over the years to come, there may be additions or revisions to this list.
Attended Automation
This form of RPA requires a more hands-on approach from the user, which means that when this bot is put into use and cannot 100% operate without human interaction. The best use of attended automation is then for tasks that still heavily rely on human operation. RPA will make that process easier and more efficient for the person observing. These tasks are more difficult for the bot to interpret and manage independently. For example, if part of a procedure has four manual steps, you can launch code that allows the RPA bots to check the tasks as the human completes them against predetermined parameters.
Unattended Automation
Unattended automation is where you can genuinely start to detach and allow the bots to take over the work. This type of RPA requires zero interaction from humans and typically works in the background on data entry and email management tasks. These operations reduce the workload required of non-customer-facing departments like IT.
Hybrid RPA
Exactly how the name sounds, this form of RPA combines aspects of both attended and unattended automation to perform client-facing and non-client-facing operations. The benefit of a hybrid RPA is that a human can jump in at any point and alter the unattended automation to make any necessary adjustments. This RPA lends itself very nicely for collaboration between departments. The bots and your team will work together, in this case, to complete their tasks at the same time. Customer-facing roles tend to benefit from hybrid RPA because it can help cut down on the service time it takes to fulfill a request by automating the admin tasks related to the customer’s issue.
All three of these RPA techniques are designed with a specific function in mind and are implemented to ease the workload of a team and remove the amount of human error that occurs. This can be especially beneficial with test data management in performance testing, where one wrong data transfer can result in an entire restart of a test. Automated scripts have become an essential element to keeping your software development processes agile and lean, and pairing your desired RPA with the team at Foulk Consulting will lead to your team becoming more efficient on all fronts.
Where Can RPA Be Applied?
It is no surprise to learn that some form of RPA is used in almost every industry. Industries like finance, healthcare, IT, and supply chain management rely on RPA to make their daily processes easier. Essentially, any business that has a repetitive task can benefit from using an RPA. In the world of healthcare, an RPA can be used to help with processes like patient registration and claims management by using predefined parameters to automate repetitive data.
What Are the Key Benefits of RPA?
Above all, RPA is a non-invasive asset to implement into the everyday life of your company. We’ve briefly touched on some of the benefits you can expect to experience with RPA, but here is an expanded list of the major ones to note.
- Increased Productivity: Repetitive tasks can eat away at the available time a person has to complete the more demanding tasks involved with their workload. Implementing RPA will allow an individual to put their focus on the tasks that cannot be automated and need a more advanced level of evaluation that only a human touch can fulfill.
- Less Human Error: Humans will make mistakes; it is inevitable. Bots, however, can take this element out of the equation. As long as the automation process that will be used is set up and managed adequately, human error will cease to be a major problem in most operations.
- Data Security: There are fears about security when the idea of having a robot run sensitive processes. While this can be the case in hastily set up operations, similar to fixing human errors, the risks of leaks are significantly decreased if the RPA has defined parameters for its operation.
Make the Most of Your RPA with Foulk Consulting
Adding RPA capabilities to your business is an exciting endeavor, but it needs to be handled with care. The team at Foulk Consulting can introduce the agnostic techniques necessary for integrating multiple application landscapes to deliver faster time to RPA value and coverage.
Contact us today to partner with the most capable team in the industry.
