Not starting simple and instead trying to automate the end-to-end process. Each process contains multiple automation opportunities. Try to identify each one and focus on details. The end-to-end process can be automated in combination of RPA, analytics and artificial intelligence solutions.

Not spending enough time on exception scenarios. It is important to automate the straightforward processes, but it is equally important to understand all the exceptions within. Not all exceptions are suitable for automation. Identifying and automating the right exceptions could provide significant business value in the short term.

Not asking the right questions during the discovery phase. Even if a targeted process is well documented, ask about and identify what the operators are actually doing. Documented processes may be considerably different than real life scenarios.

Attempting to fix the process before automating it. Automate the “as-is” process. Fixing any process usually involves multiple stakeholders, technology and operational challenges. Don’t make this costly mistake.

Not digging deep in the analysis phase and defining boundaries of the targeted process. No matter how simple the process may appear, it is important to dig deep to understand all the details, including constraints and exceptions. Having defined all the details will help during the design phase and save a lot of time.

Not setting realistic expectations and communicating effectively with stakeholders.

Trying to implement automation between non-stable systems. If the systems RPA will be interacting with are unstable, and/or there are different software versions deployed in test and production environments, RPA won’t work.

Not understanding the differences between RPA and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and trying to get on the AI bandwagon. It is important to make sure that all stakeholders embarking on a RPA journey clearly understand key terminologies and their nuances. I am familiar with cases in which organizations planned AI implementations despite the fact that most of their problems were ideal candidates for RPA automation.

Thinking solely of short-term gains and not investing in the future. Implementing RPA solutions  in “one-off” scenarios may help, but real gains are realized when key stakeholders and business processes are considered holistically as part of an RPA Center of Excellence. In this model, effective decisions can be made collectively on process selections, ROI calculations and designing an organization to create re-usable RPA components for long-term gains.

In summary, RPA can be a great tool for immediate cost reduction and creating process efficiencies. Companies that think and start simple with RPA have realized remarkable business value from their RPA investments. Working with an experienced partner such as Canon Business Process Services can shorten the learning curve considerably

Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Cognitive computing  , Artificial and business Intelligence are the seamless candidates for the insurance, wealth management and finance institutions business process automation. As they have an enormous opportunities to reduce the repeated manual tasks by the operations and sales teams of these organizations. Automating these tasks will definitely improve the efficiency and efficacy of their business in terms of security, data consistencies, regulatory and audit process and operational elasticity.

Reliable technology is really the key to any NEXT GEN industry’s success. Thought shift is the need of an hour to make it happen. The more automation and reliability the financial institution and bank can bring into the customer experience will define the industry’s success for many years to come. IT department should start thinking in line with minimize the data entry screen and maximize the data captures through contact less sensors and business intelligence. Required data are already available in the space in one or the other forms. The way we are going to collect, consolidate and use it for business improvement matters now.

Success indeed will not be driven just by adding more bells and whistle, rather by balancing functionality with ease of use and thereby clearly communicating features and benefits to the customers. Inline, with this thought, I am happy to pen down some of my ideas in an abstract form here.

Robotics opportunities in Insurance:

Robots shall replace the insurance agents soon. These robots can have an ability to automatically generate the contacts through data mining using business Intelligence with the help of LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media tools, well informed and targeted campaign management through digital media and social networking sites. Just one click to make a well informed decision making data points, on-board them to the policy administration system, administer their policies by frequent reminder and provisioning easy payment system.

Robotics opportunities in Wealth management sectors:

In this segment, robotics can be better used in Advisor/Broker’s segments with the right set of predictive and trend analysis data points in the chart form .Thereby the common crowd can easily understand the risk and help them to mitigate their risk in a well-structured best proven process. May be the robot can bring the right mix of financial alerts, and help with respect the users personalized requirements. It can also aid them to open an account without any hassles. The robot should take care of validating and verifying the KYC of the customer from different source of information. The robotic advisers can access on demand, up-to-date tailored performance summaries for their clients, giving them knowledge they need to make better investment decisions.

Robotics opportunities in banking:

The very real threat posed by Google, Amazon and Apple who both have mobile pay systems presents an additional layer of urgency for fin institutions to accelerate innovations. These two tech giants already have untold amounts of customer data and are experts at manipulating the information to gain a stronger foot hold. May be in near future, there is no surprise these two giants may rewrite the banking operations as such. Also sooner these giants shall introduce the digital currencies with so called bit coins technologies. As these folks owns the trading platform, soon they may train their global users’ behavior to use the digital currencies instead of real currencies.

Experts agree the financial sector is at a crossroads. It is now required to take a look at Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology and what it wants it to accomplish in the short and long term. The advantage the banks have access to years of data related to sales, products, divisions and branch activities as well as customer opinions which improves leadership’s ability to make informed decision. Using RPA and Business Intelligence, the vast amount of data can be mined, marketed and continually monitor business process and the behaviour of personnel and software applications as part of those process. Not only can robotics be used to identify an anomaly, there by turning human worker into problem solvers, it can also initiate a set of action items to respond to the occurrence.

To a lighter note.. Robotic process automation is going to kill the traditional IT infrastructure and operations services offshoring business models. If you are not going to do it, someone is there to pick it up !

Assessing the risks of industrial robotic technology is the first step in achieving robotic safety in a factory setting. A proper risk assessment for industrial robotics typically includes two steps: a risk analysis and a risk evaluation.

A risk analysis may be the more involved process of the two and often requires three different steps: determining the limits of the robotic machinery, identifying the potential hazards involved in production, and estimating the risk of identified hazards.

While not every manufacturer will be able to follow these exact steps, they are a good guideline for a proper industrial robotic risk assessment

Identifying Sources of Hazard in Industrial Robotics

Hazard identification in industrial robotic processes may be one of the most important steps in a safety risk assessment. Hazards can come in mechanical, electrical, thermal, noise, vibration, radiation, material or ergonomic form

The type of hazard presented depends on your application, and is just as dependent on when industrial robots are interacted with, such as during integration, training, maintenance or routine production. The instances of interaction, along with the types of hazards, need to be assessed in relation to the types of safety protocols put in place to prevent injury or harm to workers.

Identifying sources of hazard in industrial robotics is a key step and not always a straightforward consideration. Once the hazards are identified, and the instances of robotic interaction are established, assessing safety risks becomes more simplified.

Safety in industrial robotics is paramount. Manufacturers have a responsibility to protect workers from injury or harm, and can even achieve regulatory compliance and increased productivity in the process of improving safety.

To learn more about industrial robotic safety, read about RIA’s robotic safety training seminars that teach employees what they need to know about assessing safety and risks in your workplace.