Jargon buster: what does intelligent automation in the workplace really mean?

Jargon buster: what does intelligent automation in the workplace really mean?Intelligent automation is a key feature of the Smart Office concept. By automating simple tasks, workloads are reduced and staff are able to focus on more complex, creative or rewarding work.

Descriptions of intelligent automation and robotic process automation (RPA) can easily become quite jargon-heavy. And there’s no use replacing one piece of jargon with another.Often, the easiest way to explain something is to show it in action:

A service centre team has to record specific transactions in a compliance system that is delivered as a browser-based app. Unfortunately, there is no integration between the team’s systems and the browser-based app

Company policy is to record the transaction in the compliance app straight after the transactions are completed in order for the systems to stay in sync. The rep who made the transaction is responsible for updating the compliance app

There are 22 reps in the team, completing 25 transactions per day, taking 4 minutes each time. Across the entire team, this results in roughly 183 hours of work a week

Removing this manual task would save the equivalent of 5 full-time employees’ salaries per year

How would intelligent automation solve this problem?

An hourly report would be scheduled, exporting data from the team’s systems into a generic Excel format

A programme running on a server works through the Excel file and for each row, logs into the compliance application and enters the data into the compliance system

A second ‘process integrity’ programme cross-references the compliance data with the team’s system to make sure there are no errors

A simple dashboard is configured with email alerts ensuring the compliance application has been updated according to fixed parameters

183 hours per week have been handed back to the service centre team. The technical risk is low as the desktop team’s applications are not affected and the project scope is modest.