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RPA News | Robotic Process Automation News | Mindfields Global

Robotic Process Automation News and Artificial Intelligence - If you look around there is a glut of information on Intelligent Automation and RPA. But businesses still find it challenging to understand how automation can benefit them. click here Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#Robotic Process Automation News #RPA News

RPA Consultant | Robotic Process Automation Consultant | Mindfields Global

Our experienced consultants leverage Mindfields IP-based proprietary tools and innovative methodologies to advise clients while working as a part of their team to meet their KPIs. We have the experience of automating more than 450 processes across various verticals.

Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#RPA Consultant #Robotic Process Automation Consultant #Robotic Process Automation

Best Robotic Process Automation Tools | Mindfields Global

We provide services throughout the RPA journey, from defining the strategy to continuous improvement, implementation, automation, integration and support. We offer robotic process automation tools for your business growth. Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#robotic process automation tools #rpa tools #Robotic Process Automation

Benefits of RPA | Robotic Process Automation | Mindfields Global

Benefits of RPA in business range from immediate cost reduction, employee empowerment, accuracy of work to minimizing of effort for repetitive tasks.

Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#benefits of rpa #benefits of robotic process automation #Robotic Process Automation

12 key takeaways on Setting up the Centre of Excellence for RPA

As more and more organisations grab the bull by the horns and start their journey towards using robotic process automation (RPA) a wealth of early-adopter case studies are starting to emerge to help guide the trek

Mindfields has clients at all the different stages and is documenting the challenges and discoveries to make the journeys of future clients as smooth as possible.

In order to start sharing some of this knowledge, we have been running webinars, including one titled "Setting up the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for RPA - What, Why and When"

A full recording of the webinar and presentation can be accessed at any time by clicking here.

This event included the thoughts of David Thurkle, who has been instrumental in setting up a Centre of excellence at National Australia Bank, one of Australia’s largest institutions, which also has a presence in Europe.

He shared both his experiences and his thoughts on a wide-ranging array of questions submitted by webinar registrants.

We also discussed the findings of five polls, which had been conducted during the webinar among the participants from leading top 100 Global organisations.

We chose this topic as most of the clients that are starting or have started on RPA have approached us to seek advice on setting up a Centre of Excellence.

12 key takeaways from "Setting up the Centre of Excellence for RPA"

There is no standard definition or composition for a successful Centre of Excellence. Its construct and content differ depending on factors such as the industry vertical and operating model. It is also a different approach within processes that were already outsourced or offshored (including captive centres) compared to onshore and in-house processes.

1. A Centre of Excellence should be used to promote and maintain existing organisational dynamics and to sustain current and future RPA initiatives. It should establish a strong relationship with the technology teams early and make sure tech staff are part of the Centre of Excellence. Navigating the change management and support landscape in technology can be complex and the relevant staff are a key part of the overall success of RPA at an enterprise scale

2. Ownership of the Centre of Excellence should reside mainly within the business, rather than any specialised IT group that may exist. Most respondents to our survey felt that it is best to report in to a chief operating officer if one exists in the organisation.

3. Most organisations are only starting to set up a Centre of Excellence after a proof of concept has been successfully completed.

4. Establishment of the Centre of Excellence should be driven by the pace at which the organisation wants to expand its RPA delivery capacity and increase the delivery velocity.

5. Organisations are tending to opt for a centralised Centre of Excellence structure in the initial phase of their journey, before moving to a decentralised structure in the medium to long term.

6. If set up correctly the Centre of Excellence provides a great incubator for the development of RPA skills for the enterprise.

7. The Centre of Excellence for RPA should be upgraded to include machine learning, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence as the organisation’s journey progresses.

8. Before marketing the idea of RPA to the broader organisation the Centre of Excellence should have demand management capabilities, as everyone tends to want to get in first. Business units can get very creative with RPA and demand will pick up quickly.

9.The Centre of Excellence should layout guidelines for the prioritisation of processes for automation. This should include business case tracking, RPA software selection, license allocation, hardware asset allocation, coding standards, training and resource (talent) management.

10. It is important for the Centre of Excellence to have an early engagement with colleagues within risk management, security, and other control groups. This should include auditors (both internal and external).

11. All processes should be prepared with the acceptance that at some point a reverse transition to human interaction – or a better brand of RPA software – may be required.

12. Of course viewing the full proceedings of our event will put these points in a more complete context, and you will also see that there were many more valuable ideas shared on the day.

This was our third webinar in a series of initiatives to guide our network on the latest in RPA and AI with senior executives who have lived through it. We have automated more than 750 processes and we too have failed initially. But now, in last 24 months – 100% of our clients have a successful RPA journey to share.

#Centre of Excellence for RPA #Centre of Excellence #what is centre of excellence

WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF ROBOTIC PROCESS AUTOMATION IN THE MARKET AND WHAT IS HOLDING IT BACK? | Mindfields Global

There has been a steady increase in Process Automation -enabled integrated IT/ BPO engagements in the last year, some at proof of concept stage. Automation capability is now being adopted across all regions and expanding from manufacturing into the services sectors. However, automation deployment has been limited by high set-up costs and lower labour costs, especially in offshore locations.

The market is still nascent, but client organisations are expecting their service providers to embed their RPA capabilities, a move which will reduce costs by around 30- 50% and improve the accuracy of rule- based processes and tasks. IT/BPO service providers are trying to fully gauge the impact of embedding RPA solutions into their service offering. We expect 2018 to be the year when Process Automation becomes a buzzword and even a game-changer for service providers. The potential for significant process efficiencies, cost improvements and flexibility in managing projects will be tremendous but the scale and complexity of implementations is currently limited.

Current limitations in Process Automation technology

A number of enhancements will help drive adoption, but Process Automation technology still needs to undergo further R&D to help overcome some current limitations:

1. Capturing inputs from diverse formats: Deploying robots to read through different formats remains a challenge. Robot applications cannot, for example, read or capture data from scanned images including handwritten content without using OCR technology. Advances in self-learning and artificial intelligence, combined with integrating current Process Automation capabilities with more sophisticated input devices such as OCR technologies, will open up a significantly broader set of processes. We expect this will make the Process Automation business case look more attractive and open up to areas which use scanned images, including insurances claims and invoices.

2. Processing unstructured email content: Free format email communications between supervisors and process managers with agents have a high degree of unstructured data. This makes it difficult for robotic applications to capture or comprehend information without human intervention. Advances in AI, self-learning and analytics capabilities will make it easier to integrate RPA into such systems and automate processes reliant on such unstructured data.

3. Frequent changes in business rules and operating procedures: Currently, the effectiveness of RPA technology diminishes when the frequency of changes in business rules varies on an ongoing basis. Process Automation platforms perform at optimal levels when standard operating procedures are well defined and undergo minimal changes. In processes where the rules keep changing, the level of re-work on re-programming robots to incorporate the changes goes up. This means additional investment in coding, testing the changes and re-deploying the robots in live environments. This can impact productivity and efficiency, and require frequent human intervention to manage exceptions and reprogram the robots.

Most of these issues will be addressed over time as automation software vendors continue to innovate, improvise and incorporate new functionalities and features into subsequent generations of their Process Automation platforms.

Factors impeding rapid adoption of Process Automation

Service Providers, some in conjunction with RPA software providers, are working jointly to address the current limitations of existing Process Automation technology, but there are otherfactors impeding more rapid adoption:

1. Industry standards are still being developed. Process Automation has only recently emerged as a recognised offering and well-defined industry standards are yet to be formalised.

2. Process Automation initiatives are being adopted in pockets, typically among early adopter organisations that can see the benefits in their environments even while industry standards are still being developed.

3. Many enterprise buyers are cautiously waiting on the sidelines, keen to develop a deeper understanding of this rapidly emerging area, how it applies to their business environment, and how the business case stacks up before they take the plunge.

4. The current wave of Process Automation is only applicable to a narrow scope of services, namely, simple rule-based processes, typically with a high level of human involvement. Much of this can be replaced by RPA and offer a relatively quick payback.

5. Existing multi-year BPO contracts which are primarily structured on a labour arbitrage model may act as blockers for Process Automation implementation until contracts near expiry or are due for renewal.

6. Some service providers are reluctant to push RPA too hard at this stage for fear of cannibalising existing revenue streams.

Author: Mohit Sharma

For more info please visit: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#process automation

RPA News | MindFields Global

We understand our client's requirements and enable them to make informed decisions on how their RPA journey should proceed.

Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#rpa news

Define Robotics | MindFields Global

When adopting a new technology, there is always some uncertainty and skepticism within any organization. We understand our client's requirements and enable them to make informed decisions on how their RPA journey should proceed.

Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#define robotics

The Five Pillars of a Successful RPA Test Plan | Mindfields Global

KavToday, we are in an unprecedented situation and we are learning and adapting to live with Covid-19 as part of our life and work. As RPA (Robotic Process Automation) adoption and implementation continue to rise exponentially in organizations across all sectors, one particular stage of bot development life cycle that is getting more limelight is Testing. For an RPA automated process to successfully transition from the as-is state to to-be state in Production, optimal and concise testing is extremely important. RPA testing practices are not very different to traditional software testing methodologies, but they do differ in some ways. With the proven and extensive experience of large number of successful RPA implementations across different domains and verticals, the successful test plan has been condensed into 5 pillars as listed below

Requirement Understanding: One of the widely accepted pain points is change in requirements before and during the development of automation solution for the process in hand. The testing team should completely understand the to-be automation solution before commencing any testing. This step is very crucial in the test cycle because it will be the premise for the subsequent steps created in the testing activities. The testing team should thoroughly understand the As-is process flows, the To-be process flows and any further relevant technical documents created during the requirement analysis and design phase of the project. The team is ready to move on to the next step of creating the test data only after it has understood the requirement.

Test Data: Test data is the most important dependency for the successful execution of any test cycle. Invalid or incomplete test data will most certainly generate incorrect test reports, which can lead to invalid defects being reported, derailing the testing timeline and ultimately impact the efficacy of the RPA Implementation. Hence it is necessary to know clearly what variations of data will be needed in terms of types and formats, for the test cycle to be productive.

Test Cases and Scripts: In this stage, we will put together the information we have gathered till now. Different test cases with a variety of specific outcomes will be required in the generation of test scripts. The document can be a simple excel spreadsheet which will include list of test scenarios, scenario-specific input data that will be required to execute the testing, output to be expected and output that was actually displayed, and a status column which will mention if this test was a success or a failure. It is very important to have clear and concise test script. The more detailed the script, the less likelihood of missing any test scenarios. It is a best practice to have the test script reviewed and approved by the design team and SME (Subject Matter Expert). The changes suggested should be incorporated before starting the next step in the testing cycle. This extra step will ensure there are no gaps in the test cycle.

Execution: This is the step in which we can validate if the To-be process after automation is as per the requirements. Execution of the test script will be smooth if the test scenarios were documented clearly and in a concise manner. Every business rule should have been covered that was noted in the requirements documentation. Generally, the Functional Requirement Document (FRD) / Technical Design Document will list the required scenarios that need to be validated during testing, but reviewing the process flows and cross verifying the required documents for any missing information is also important for a successful process automation.

Defect Management: Defects are a general expectation with any and every testing cycle, as that is the purpose of doing testing in the first place. Defects should be documented by the testing team and must be notified to the development team. Attention to detail is the key to effectively manage defects. The correction can be made quicker if the testing team can provide as much information as possible. Details should include description of the test-case, capture image of the error screen, recording where the process failed, attaching the file having input data used for testing, and attaching the output file generated by the automation solution.

Successfully deploying RPA can be a tedious exercise. Although the last step in the deployment process, testing is one of the most important part of any software solution project. The RPA Consultant has to ensure organizations have a smooth and effective testing cycle for every RPA project by leveraging the lessons learned from every previous implementation.

Author: Kavi Dave

#rpa robotic process automation

RPA Uipath | MindFields Global

Please Visit - https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/services/robotic-process-automation

Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#rpa uipath

RPA Consultant | Mindfields Global

Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#rpa consultant

Gartner RPA | MindFields Global

Mindfields was founded in 2006, it is a vendor-agnostic Intelligent Automation and Artificial Intelligence advisory firm. It provides strategy services to CXO level executives across verticals on emerging and disruptive technologies. Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#gartner rpa

Targeting Operating Models For Robotic Process Automation | MindFields Global

The key objective of establishing a well-defined Target Operating Model (TOM) is to create an opportunity for client organisations to maximise business value by harnessing the virtual workforce and other organisational resources to best effect, whilst maintaining control over future costs and with stronger risk mitigation strategies.

Client organisations and service providers would be well served by establishing a well-structured TOM before transitioning from the robot build and design phase to Business-As-Usual (BAU) / steady state. This is important as the operations team should be made aware of the prerequisites of

Robotic process automation

i.e. what needs to be completed in advance, well before processes are automated and transitioned from human operators to robot applications. This is possible when a stable IT environment exists and there are no issues with hardware or software systems either operating onpremise or in a cloud based environment.

Some of the key areas that clients should concentrate on while establishing a TOM from the current operating model are as follows:

Table 1 – Target Operating Model

Focus AreasTarget Operating Model (TOM) – Points to consider

Refining ownership structures

Who will own the software – is this owned by and licensed from the Robotic process automation software provider or the service provider?

Who will maintain the Robotic process automation tool on an ongoing basis?

What obligations lie with the software provider vs. the service provider vs. the client organization to ensure the robots perform as required and with reliability?

Key considerations to review may include:

Licensing directly with the software provider might mitigate risks arising in case the software provider is acquired by competitor, which has high probability while this new space is still developing

Avoiding in-house tools from a service provider might minimize risk of lock-in to a service provider

Change Management

Establishing a communications roadmap between robot operational teams and business / process owners (client) to prevent any misalignment between changes in service demands, operating procedures etc.

Establish change management procedures to closely monitor and escalate issues to respective owners accountable for issue resolution

Define clear guidelines for situations where robots raise red flags in exceptional areas – Establish a reporting and escalation resolution matrix clearly identifying who is responsible or accountable for what activities

Periodic reporting of progress and issue areas to senior management – Establish real-time accessible dashboards providing a 360 degree view of robot KPIs and benefits realised

Performance Management

Establishing revised SLA parameters in-terms of faster transaction processing speeds and accuracy levels

Measuring, managing and reporting the performance levels to key stakeholders (operational leads of client and Robotic process automation implementation partner)

Taking course corrective actions in exceptional cases requiring human intervention (involving process experts, software architects and application developers) whenever required – standby team to prevent any impact on business operations

Continuously identify opportunities for improving robot operational performance

Defining roles and responsibilities in a virtual workforce environment

Focus on clearly establishing well defined roles and responsibilities in the following areas:

Nominate key resources accountable for managing robot performance, uptime and compliance adherence

Responsibility and accountability of dedicated resources on re-programming robots as a result of change in business rules

Identifying key operational teams (implementation partner) responsible for coordinating together to deliver the required results to business

Defining roles and responsibilities of business (e.g. query resolution, managing exceptions etc.) – Nomination of single point of contact (SPOC) from business to take appropriate action within set time frames

Clearly defining and communicating accountabilities among key parties involved in the Robotic process automation implementation phase (Robotic process automation software vendor, implementation partner and client organisation). Key areas may include:

Keeping software patches updated on a real-time basis

Implementation partner’s responsibility to maintain uptime, service levels, accuracy, reporting, issue resolution and regulatory compliance in close coordination with Robotic process automation software vendor

Clearly documenting expectations, roles and responsibilities including achieving revised service levels from the implementation parties in the contract agreement

Robot workforce management

Robotic process automation will not ensure 100% automation and elimination of all human operators/ managers

Dedicated human resource ‘Robot Manager’ may be assigned responsibilities for managing and monitoring robot performance, issues, robotic resource allocation activities, exception handling and speed and accuracy levels

Creating a robot trainer team may include a team of highly trained software developers and process experts to define development requirements, including testing and deploying robots in live environment

Governance

Having appropriate levels of governance are in place is an essential element of ensuring the Robotic process automation tools deliver on expected business outcomes. Key considerations include:

Should governance be just within the client organisation or span across the service provider as well?

Who takes the responsibility if a robot malfunctions? (e.g. if payment missed, who pays the penalty – Is it the implementation partner or the Robotic process automation software provider)

Who is responsible for establishing robot change control procedures? Does it lie with the client organisation (as part of their change control policies) or should they be refined in close collaboration with the implementation partner?

Reverse Transition Plan

Buyers should develop Reverse Transition Plan to have flexibility to move or swap with another Robotic process automation tool or service provider

Types of Process

Due Diligence Steps

Ownership and Pricing Strategy

Already outsourced

Benchmark Incumbent service provider’s Robotic process automation tools and capabilities to the tools available in the market.

Assess Business case of moving to other service provider if incumbent service provider Robotic process automation solution fails to meet requirements.

Assess if they can acquire and develop in-house capabilities for reverse transition in medium to long term depending on the other non financial drivers (for automated component of process) and contractual obligations

Buy side client organisation should own the tool after evaluating the different pricing options for the automated component of the process.

If the Incumbent service provider is selected- the pricing of human interface should be negotiated depending on onshore/offshore location.

Gain sharing: it should be define objectively depending on the quality of data available to ascertain the gains of a Robotic process automation initiative. It is generally subjective to estimate the exact efficiency gain in short to medium term.

Not yet outsourced

Evaluate service providers along with Robotic process automation tools (in-house and third-party tools) depending on the process which has been considered.

Develop in-house capabilities with training from Robotic process automation tool provider and its channel partners.

Buy side client organisation should own the tool after evaluating the different pricing options for the automated component of the process.

If any service provider is selected – the pricing of human interface should be negotiated depending on onshore/offshore location.

Gain sharing: it should be defined objectively depending on the quality of data available to ascertain the gains of a Robotic process automation initiative.

Key Points for consideration for Service provider

Ability to package a solution with value added services would be key factor.

Need to move up the value chain beyond being reseller of Robotic process automation tools.

Pricing of in-house tools should be competitive.

M&A strategy to acquire Robotic process automation tool inorganically.

Proactive to offer Robotic process automation solutions to existing clients and cannibalise the current revenue to grow for tomorrow otherwise client might be lost to competitors with strong Robotic process automation offerings.

Key Points for consideration for buy side organisations

The ownership of niche Robotic process automation tool is critical as they are attractive acquisition targets by competing service provider.

Reverse Transition strategies should be planned and tested on regular basis. This will provide flexibility to swap between different and better Robotic process automation tools (if need arises).

Pricing contracts should be of terms no more than 12 to 18 months.

Train and develop in-house capabilities (onshore/offshore) in Robotic process automation tools domain.

Continuously evaluate existing and emerging Robotic process automation tools in the market.

#robotic process automation tools

Opening Of New Office in Melbourne | MindFileds Global

Mindfields is an Australian robotics company having spent years in IT and Business Process Consulting. We deliver intelligent automation for businesses through robotic process automation, AI in healthcare.

Founded in 2006, Mindfields is a vendor-agnostic Robotic Process Automation and Artificial Intelligence advisory firm, providing strategy services to CXO level executives across verticals on emerging and disruptive technologies.

Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#automation companies in melbourne

Website: https://www.mindfieldsglobal.com/

#robotic process automation software

#robotics workshop

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