Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a software solution used to perform mundane repetitive work previously done by people. RPAs emerged in the 2000s and grew as a subset of Business Process Management and the three technologies of screen scraping, workflow automation tools, and artificial intelligence. It was not until 2015 that RPAs began to enter the mainstream (Welsh, 2019, p. 2). Private industry reacted quickly and took advantage of the many benefits of RPA use, while reducing the burden of employee rote tasks. This research paper explores current Robotic Process Automation (RPA) use and identifies application areas of RPAs that could cross over from private industry to government or from one government agency to another. Additionally, this paper reports and analyzes efficiencies gained by automating mundane simple processes, which allow redirection of employees' efforts and a shift to more challenging work. A study of private industry and government entities revealed the business areas of finance and operations to be the top areas for RPA application. The benefits of an RPA application include cost savings, increased accuracy, increased productivity, increased scalability, and shift to high-level work. A secondary benefit of RPA use is employee job satisfaction. The Office and Management Budgets RPA directive should be implemented swiftly and with diligence, thus the paper strongly recommends that government entities look at their internal processes to assess, which of these might be improved by RPA application. Another recommendation is that government offices interested in RPAs contact the Federal RPA community of practice as a resource to planning and implementing a good RPA process. This would reduce the risk of duplicating RPA efforts that already exist and allow utilization of existing RPAs.