After the read, you will learn about the below 10 things to know in robotic process automation.
- The inevitable is delayed
- Support for real solutions is gradually weakening
- Rising complexity
- Old problems still exist
- Data translation may cost you
- Your superuser has no programming skills
- The programmer is still your best choice
- Large-scale technical support has its disadvantages
- Computers can only eliminate a certain degree of bureaucracy
- Too much automation can be dangerous
Robotic process automation will simplify work processes, closely integrate legacy systems, and empower business users to solve their own problems. But behind the many benefits, there are some problems that need to be solved.
There is at least one robot butler in every excellent science fiction novel. It is an all-knowing and all-powerful elf who can solve all our problems in an instant. The people who coined the buzzword robotic process automation obviously wanted to take advantage of this perception.
Customers who purchase the platform hope to delegate their daily work to the computer butler so that the liberated employees can focus on more challenging tasks.
The good news is that there are many examples showing that this buzzword is very accurate. Companies are simplifying their work processes and building their complete dashboards to collect data and then produce useful infographics.
Facts have proved that robotic process automation tools can make computers perform some of the most arduous tasks, and these tasks annoy everyone in the business process.
Robotic process automation tools also give new life to legacy systems by adding new layers that can intelligently process old code and help extend its lifespan.
Many robotic process automation tools can also be deployed by non-programmers so that those who are distressed with old tools can drag and drop new icons to improve their workflow.
By choosing the right tools and implementation methods, anyone who can write spreadsheet macros can use robotic process automation to simplify the workflow.
All these miracles are obvious, they can provide a beautiful appearance and can eliminate a lot of monotonous and tedious work. But behind these benefits that robotic process automation brings to your system, there are some hidden problems, which may cause trouble over time.
1. The inevitable is delayed
One of the advantages of robotic process automation is that it can build a layer that can integrate old software packages. Of course, you can also rewrite these software packages from scratch to make everything work together, but an excellent robotic process automation solution can accomplish many of the same things in less time. This is the digital version of the production of chewing gum and packing wire.
This method can work miracles. At its debut, the productivity gains can be exciting. But this did not eliminate the legacy code. It just hides the old code deeper, making it less noticeable and unfamiliar.
2. Support for real solutions is gradually weakening
When the beautiful robotic process automation layer solved the pain point of people complaining about the sound, it was a huge success. But because the deeper problems have not been resolved, this apparent solution may also hide another problem: no one will pay attention.
Temporary solutions that meet current needs may even affect the work of allocating budgets, making it impossible to solve the problem of legacy code once and for all because leaders will no longer listen to related complaints. They will think that beautiful layers of robotic process automation can do the job, and they can spend their budget elsewhere.
3. Rising complexity
Ordinary users may think that robotic process automation solutions can simplify everything, but below the surface, everything becomes more complicated. If there were N layers of complex coding in the past, now there are N + 1 layers of code. This makes debugging and maintenance work more difficult. When something goes wrong, it means looking in the N + 1 layer of code, hoping to find the place where the error is.
4. Old problems still exist
Robotic process automation solutions may conceal the ugliness of old code, but they cannot solve the limitations or errors hidden in it. The good news is that the intelligent robot process automation layer can intercept certain potential problems. Sometimes the solution is very good and stable. But sometimes it’s like painting a new coat of paint on a rotting porch.
5. Data translation may cost you
A lot of coding work usually involves rearranging the data bits to make the data format meet the requirements of certain libraries, and then, when the returned answer is obtained, rearranging the data bits again to store the data in another format elsewhere. One part of the code requires the year to be placed at the top of the date; the other part requires the year to be placed at the end.
A malicious person once wrote a Java utility that used zero as the first item in the month array, so February became the first month. Although the first date of the month is one. But this kind of code makes me unacceptable.
Many robotic process automation stacks automatically perform some translation work, so you don’t need to worry. This will make it easier to develop working software, but it does not eliminate the low-level work required for these endless translations. Servers will need to become more powerful, and you will need to pay higher electricity bills for processing this data.
In many cases, this may require very little money, so don’t worry. But if you want to perform large-scale operations, the cost of scale expansion may be very high. In some cases, it may be necessary to hire a team of programmers to write clean code by hand.
6. Your superuser has no programming skills
From executives to part-time interns, everyone can open a certain robotic process automation tool, and it does not take too long to complete certain tasks. Automation is really effective. But even if superpowers are real, they do not have the wisdom to understand how to effectively use robotic process automation tools.
Programmers understand the structure of data, and they have spent a lot of time mastering the special ways in which computers may receive (for example) incorrectly formatted dates. Programmers understand the network, and they understand the basic rules of computer and system architecture. All of these capabilities are invaluable when it comes to linking together the magic codes that drive the automation of robotic processes.
7. The programmer is still your best choice
Although sales staff believe that business users will be your first choice for robotic process automation, programmers are still the most effective and efficient users of robotic process automation tools. They have many years of work experience at every level of the technology stack.
They know which queries the database can answer quickly, and which queries will contain various joins (JOIN), which makes the equipment slow. Over the years, they have worked hard to gain a deep understanding of the best way to construct a problem, so that the system can generate valuable answers.
If the robotic process automation tool is a (for example, 10 times) power multiplier, and you give it to a star programmer who is 10 times more capable than an ordinary programmer, then you may get 100 times the workload. This leverage is really complicated.
8. Large-scale technical support has its disadvantages
Most robotic process automation tools promise to interact with countless different products with different API formats. This statement is usually correct, but the result is often not perfect. Robotic process automation suppliers will meet customers’ needs for various types of technical support, but such extensive technical support is difficult to achieve and maintain.
For example, it is common to find errors or loopholes in the data flowing through the interface. Sometimes, the date may be a very strange format. Sometimes, empty results will gradually occur. And there will be hundreds of glitches. These may not be fatal failures, but you will add some work to clear the error, or just deal with some occasional loopholes.
9. Computers can only eliminate a certain degree of bureaucracy
Robotic process automation tools are expected to simplify work processes, but most process bottlenecks have nothing to do with a computer or robotic process automation. Because some people find ways to mess things up, they often add steps to the work process, and this kind of disaster often happened decades ago. Maybe someone in the Kansas office lost $1 million for not getting advice from Portland. Maybe some of the interns turned out to be liars.
The best robotic process automation software can solve some of these troubles, but it cannot completely eliminate them. If someone thinks that the Hong Kong team needs to review every invoice, then the robotic process automation suite can only help the Hong Kong team to pack these invoices more easily.
The automation software cannot eliminate this work from the workflow. The real complexity comes from the people. Over-reliance on robotic process automation as a magical solution may cause your organization to lose its sanity in the actual work involved in simplifying the workflow.
10. Too much automation can be dangerous
Of course, a lot of bureaucratic red tape in the work process has its reasons. A potential danger is that the implementation of robotic process automation will accelerate the development of certain things, so that some problems will bypass the final gatekeeper, and these people will think that robotic process automation is doing heavy work. These gatekeepers will log on to the dashboard and quickly browse some pages while still watching TV or listening to podcasts.
If robotic process automation flags some abnormal situations, why spend too much time on the details?
There may not be an easy way to truly automate many of the arduous tasks involving compliance or fraud prevention. The bad guys will test the robotic process automation system and take advantage of every small loophole in it. Sometimes there needs to be some resistance in the system. Sometimes it is a mistake to oversimplify things.
C&T RF Antennas Inc is the internal antenna and external antenna manufacturer for robotics.
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