A framework to evaluate the viability of robotic process automation for business process activities
This work supports practitioners in evaluating RPA automation candidates, addressing an incremental problem in business process management.
The paper tackles the challenge of classifying business process activities as viable candidates for robotic process automation (RPA) by designing a framework with thirteen criteria grouped into five perspectives, and it demonstrates and evaluates this framework using a real-life dataset.
Robotic process automation (RPA) is a technology for centralized automation of business processes. RPA automates user interaction with graphical user interfaces, whereby it promises efficiency gains and a reduction of human negligence during process execution. To harness these benefits, organizations face the challenge of classifying process activities as viable automation candidates for RPA. Therefore, this work aims to support practitioners in evaluating RPA automation candidates. We design a framework that consists of thirteen criteria grouped into five perspectives which offer different evaluation aspects. These criteria leverage a profound understanding of the process step. We demonstrate and evaluate the framework by applying it to a real-life data set.