Describe in detail the past and present life of RPA

Author | Jie Mengmei, Unit: China Mobile Smart Home Operation Center

​Labs Introduction

The birth of some concepts and ideas is not achieved overnight; Has historical roots. New things are updated and iterated with market demands, and RPA is no exception. It was born to solve business problems and gradually developed and expanded due to enterprise automation needs. This article will focus on the development process of RPA and describe in detail the past and present of RPA.

Part 01 What is RPA?

RPA stands for Robotic Process Automation, which is Robotic Process Automation. According to preset procedures, software robots handle a large number of rule-based, repetitive, and tedious operations by simulating manual keyboard and mouse operations. Workflow tasks to achieve process automation. RPA can realize automated processing between single or multiple systems (or applications) and achieve efficient operations through the integration of multiple technologies such as process mining, CV, OCR, NLP, and low-code.

Part 02 The History of RPA

The birth of some concepts and ideas did not happen overnight, but has historical roots. In people's pursuit of a better life, the development of physical objects is often moving in the direction of faster, better, and more convenient. New things change with market demand. RPA can also be said to be in compliance with people's needs and has been developed to this day. The history before the birth of RPA is briefly summarized as follows:

1. In order to reduce costs, the first process automation production line was successfully built;
2. After that, the direction of business automation became The goal pursued by the enterprise, but the technical conditions were not available at the time;
3. Computers began to be commercialized, and industrial robots were first proposed; business automation solutions were born;
4. The first industrial robot was launched;
5. With the development of science and technology, enterprises have entered the era of computer automation, giving rise to software robots to help people process data efficiently;
6. Enterprise management is moving towards business process management (BPM).

What directly prompted the birth of RPA was BPO. In the late 1990s, the world's top 500 companies began to outsource their business processes to low-cost countries, and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) came into being. However, with the development of society, coordination costs, labor costs, and process error costs have gradually increased; at the same time, various companies have gradually realized that data privacy is more important than cost compression. Rather than handing over data to outsourcers who do not know the details, it is better to It is better to hand over the data to a robot whose activities are limited to the intranet, because the latter is obviously more secure and controllable. As a result, the world's top 500 companies gradually turned their attention to business process automation (Business Process Automation, referred to as BPA). Afterwards, BPA was widely used and various process automation technologies emerged one after another. RPA emerged as the best practice method of BPA. Obviously, RPA was born to solve business problems and gradually developed and expanded due to enterprise automation needs.

In fact, the development of RPA in China has a history of 22 years, starting from Button Wizard.

The Key Wizard that appeared in 2000 can be said to be the germ of domestic PRA. It is a software that simulates mouse and keyboard actions. By making scripts, you can let the key wizard replace your hands and automatically perform a series of mouse and keyboard actions. "Technology frees hands, and programs realize dreams" is the slogan of Button Wizard, and it is also a true portrayal of the time. Button Wizard was the de facto standard for mouse and keyboard automation at that time, and the de facto standard for the RPA product technology framework was the three-piece automated testing suite. Automated testing refers to writing test cases to simulate manual testing by recording or writing scripts, and executing test cases by playing back or running scripts, thereby replacing manual verification of system functions. Among them, the three-power structure of the UI automated testing combination Python Selenium/Appnium Jenkins has become the de facto standard for RPA product technology framework in the future. The button wizard and automated testing can be said to lay the technical foundation of RPA, that is, the body (three-piece set) and limbs (mouse and keyboard) of RPA are built.

Although RPA has been subtly influencing many enterprises and gradually developed and applied, it has always been tepid. It was not until 2018 that two financing rounds, UiPath and Automation Anywhere, detonated the global RPA industry. With constant media exposure, the RPA industry became known both inside and outside the industry. The market size achieved exponential growth and was favored by capital.

Part 03 Advantages of RPA

RPA can be simply understood as a software robot or a virtual robot that integrates business After the process is subdivided, the process can be automated by simulating manual keyboard and mouse operations to perform large-volume, repeatable operations. It is equivalent to an invisible virtual labor force performing assembly line work.

Here is a simple case comparison: resume screening and candidate shortlisting.

It is not difficult to see that the RPA industry is favored by capital and does have its own advantages, and the future combination with AI will also Will make it capable of complex tasks.

❖ Main business advantages of RPA:

• Liberate manpower. RPA can assist and enhance the work of enterprise employees, freeing them from repetitive and frequent business processes to engage in more valuable creative work and give full play to their subjective initiative;
• improve efficiency. Working 24/7, stable, accurate and responsive. Eliminate the uncertainty caused by human factors and ensure the speed, accuracy and consistency of task completion;
• Provide necessary data source support for digital upgrades and operations;
• Improve response speed and user satisfaction.

❖ Main technical advantages of RPA:

• Non-intrusive technology deployment. The so-called non-intrusive means that it is independent of existing systems, does not require modification of existing systems or development of interfaces, does not require system integration, and will not destroy the original IT architecture of the enterprise.
• Provide data privacy security.

##Part 04 The differences and connections between RPA and traditional intelligent robots and AI

- RPA&Traditional Intelligent Robot

As a software robot or virtual robot, RPA is bound to remind people of traditional intelligent robots. So what is the relationship between them? Intuitively speaking, intelligent robots are visible, while RPA is invisible and intangible, but they can assist or replace humans in performing operations and completing work through preset programs. Of course, there are different classification methods for intelligent robots in terms of function and degree of intelligence. In terms of fields, such as arc welding robots in the field of industrial robots and intelligent public service robots in the field of service robots, these tasks require entities to perform. RPA cannot be replaced. However, judging from the birth of RAP, RAP itself is a technical solution born to automate business processes, focusing on the automation of some repetitive business processes at the computer level. So this is not a question of who is better, but complementary and integrated applications in different application scenarios.

-RPA&AI

#When talking about the relationship between RPA and AI, we have to mention that from the first professional RPA tool Since its emergence, the evolution and development of RPA has gone through the following four stages:

##Three key technologies of modern RPA products They are screen scraping, business process automation management and artificial intelligence. Although the current mainstream RAP products are between the 2.0 and 3.0 stages, some RAP industry giants have already begun exploring RPA 4.0. RPA products combined with AI are like virtual robots endowed with brains, equipped with cognitive, learning and decision-making capabilities, and will be able to handle more complex tasks in business processes. RPA was born in response to market demand, and under the market's expectations, it will eventually move towards AI.

Part 05 Prospects of RPA

Currently, as the trend of aging becomes more and more obvious, the demographic dividend of various countries is also facing the dilemma of disappearing. Under the general trend, mechanical and repetitive process work is bound to be gradually replaced by robots. The entire machine The development trend of automation is unstoppable, everything is developing in a more intelligent direction, and the integration and development of AI is also an inevitable trend. Forrester analyst Lu Guannan said in "Laiye Lead 2020": The market's expectations for RPA are getting higher and higher, and RPA tools without AI capabilities will be replaced. RPA will combine machine learning and deep learning to generate insights and develop in an intelligent direction, which is the so-called IPA (Intelligence Process Automation). ​

The above is the detailed content of Describe in detail the past and present life of RPA. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!