This article is published in collaboration with our key partner, Basico P/S.
It can be of no surprise for anyone that automation solutions are gaining significant footprints in the market. The popularity and demand for such systems are rising. Foxtrot RPA is one of the oldest and most mature robotics automation solutions, introduced for the first time in 1995 primarily for the banking industry. Since then, Foxtrot RPA has grown to earn a great reputation in all industries and office areas, and the dissemination takes place at high speed, which there are primarily 4 reasons for:
A Proof of Concept (PoC) can be completed in a short period of time
In most cases, the business users can maintain Foxtrot RPA without the help of IT
The entrance cost barriers are low
Foxtrot RPA has a proven and certain ROI
Despite these great technical advantages of Foxtrot RPA, it is very important to still remember that all robotics automation solutions need to be released safely and controlled. You need a plan and proper management of the implementation.
Successful implementations require management
When you implement RPA, you need to enforce control of the virtual environment to achieve full benefit, which you do by introducing a governance structure. When preparing a governance structure, there are several factors that you should consider.
1. Who has the ultimate responsibility?
A robot must be anchored. Therefore, it is necessary that you place the responsiblity for the robot’s actions. And as with all processes, systems, etc., you should be assigning an organizational responsiblity for the robot. You need to consider several parameters when choosing the owner of the robot. But if you control the robots from a Center of Excellence (CoE), it is natural to place the responsibility to the CoE leader.
2. Who has access to configure the robot?
Another principle is that if everyone can configure a robot, nobody will take responsibility for it. Therefore, you should have a clear allocation of roles in reference to having access to the robot. Who can configure it? Who can execute? Etc.
3. Who is responsible for distributing the capacity? A robot works 24/7, 365 days a year. However, as it takes time to perform processes, the robot workforce is nevertheless a scarce resource. It is necessary to allocate robot capacity between processes, therefore, you must define who is responsible for distributing the capacity and optimizing the flow between the different business flows. Ideally, you should set up a capacity priority, so the allocation of capacity is transparent to the employees who want to use the robot.
4. Established procedures and policies ensure changes in processes and user interfaces
Processes change over time, which user interfaces in applications do too. In order for a robot to work efficiently and flawlessly, it must constantly be updated with recent changes. The governance structure must ensure that no changes are made without the robot being updated. This can be ensured by having an effective testing environment combined with established policies and procedures for updates.
5. Risk assess all robot tasks and avoid financial loss
Not all processes and subprocesses are equally critical. A robot that, for example, consistently makes mistakes while working with business data can have major consequences for the company – economically and reputationally. You should risk assess all robot tasks to categorize how to construct the control environment for the concerned task.
6. Release procedure ensure that the robot performs the scheduled tasks
Before you release a robot task in the production environment, you should ensure that the robot performs the planned tasks – and them only. To ensure that it happens every time and in a satisfactory quality, you can develop a release procedure with great benefit, which contains tests of functionality and error sources. Then, you can safely release the robot under controlled conditions.
A governance structure creates security
A governance structure gives the business and the robot owner the necessary security and control over the deployment and implementation of the platform. And hopefully it will contribute to letting the robots out to all business departments. Why not increase the efficiency of your entire business, now while you are at it?
See the options with Foxtrot RPA
Making a small pilot test is essential to see the possibilities with Foxtrot RPA. It creates trust to the functionality and you will be convinced about the possibility of success. In addition, it ensures a short time horizon from idea to achievements. Get a trial license today, and try Foxtrot RPA for free.
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