Software robots to take on more work in Asia as Covid-19 accelerates demand for automation, says UiPath
- RPAs read documents and automatically input keyboard instructions – replacing repetitive, human labour
After living through China’s recent Covid-19 outbreak, primary schoolteacher Cookie Shan now sets an alarm at 8am and 7pm each day to remind students in her WeChat class group that they need to fill in their daily health declaration forms, indicating if they have a raised temperature or dry cough, some of the key symptoms of the deadly disease.
“When the alarm rings I send a message to their parents to fill in the forms and if I don’t get a reply I call them,” said the 25 year-old, who lives in Zhejiang province in eastern China. “It’s annoying to remind them [every day].”
But this new daily exercise as a result of the recent health crisis is just one example of a wider trend as electronic processes – usually via a smartphone app or via a desktop PC – soak up more and more tasks that used to require people to fill out paper forms.
In fact, a major growth area for this kind of software – particularly in the legal and financial sectors – is what is known as robotic process automation (RPA), whereby software works as the ‘eyes and hands’ of a human by reading files and automatically inputting instructions via a keyboard.
Different from hardware robots, such as a robotic arm that serves drinks at a bar or an automatic mop that cleans floors, RPAs read documents and automatically input keyboard instructions – replacing repetitive, human labour in industries such as manufacturing, finance, consumer goods as well as in schools and hospitals.
“[During the pandemic] companies came to us … saying they were considering automation as an optional or desirable thing to have,” said Malina Platon, Asia Pacific managing director, strategic accounts, at New York-based UiPath in a recent interview with the Post. “They are looking for a technology that can help them in a critical situation.”
In April this year Microsoft announced it had embedded RPA capabilities in its workflow Power Automate Platform and the US tech giant subsequently acquired RPA provider Softomotive in May.
A UiPath spokesperson said it was the first company in China to release an RPA product to assist companies and organisations with their efforts to handle the Covid-19 outbreak.
“We are working with companies from any industry or business sector, from legal companies to manufacturing companies to telcos and retail,” said Platon. “In Southeast Asia … Singapore and Thailand are growing fast … not only commercial customers … but governments are very forward looking in terms of enabling the public sector [to deploy RPA technology].”
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Some companies from China and Korea reached out to UiPath to see if they could automate and centralise data to help alert staff if some of their colleagues were found to have Covid-19 symptoms, said Platon. The daily health survey robot has been used by a number of companies in China including life insurance firm AIA group, automobile company Beijing Hyundai Information Technology and international accounting firm Deloitte.
UiPath is also collaborating with Chinese robotic companies. Shanghai-based Emotibot launched an epidemic control robot jointly with UiPath to provide services for health data collection by government departments, medical organisations, schools and enterprises in China, according to a post by Emotibot on its official WeChat account in February.
With the help of AI, RPA systems can also tackle more complex jobs such as reviewing resumes filed for job opportunities or helping to resolve customer complaints.
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“There is more and more work to be done … and the [human] workforce is limited,” said Platon, “Applying RPA can be perceived as hiring a digital workforce, which can take on an additional amount of work … human error can be reduced almost to zero.”
To be sure, deploying RPA technology can be expensive at the outset and RPA product maturity is a key concern, according to a survey by international accounting firm PwC. Senior business leaders working in finance, sales and tax are more inclined to deploy RPA systems currently, according to the survey.
Meanwhile, the health crisis has pushed unemployment rates to new highs in many countries, putting the spotlight on the hiring of digital labour at the expense of human beings.
“We're not denying the fact that some jobs are going to disappear completely due to obsolescence … but the technology is going to create new types of jobs [for humans],” said Platon.
