Executive Q&A: How manufacturers can benefit from robotic process automation

The manufacturing industry is awash in data, but time consuming manual processes prevail at many organizations, preventing them from fully leveraging operational information to benefit the bottom line. MSDW spoke with Nick Sprau, vice-president of marketing and sales at Metafile, makers of MetaViewer, about the ways manufacturers can use robotic process automation (RPA) to boost their business. Sprau offers his take on what RPA is all about and why manufacturers in particular are likely to find ways to incorporate this new generation of process automation technology into their businesses.

MSDW: What are some characteristics of robotic process automation (RPA) that set it apart from typical workflow automation? 

Nick Sprau: I consider RPA to be an evolution of the workflow process. The more the process can intelligently manage these business functions in a touchless manner, the closer to RPA it becomes. Technology that can learn the nuances of the day-to-day decisions that orchestrate the workflow can begin to manage these processes with fewer and fewer human interventions. It is the artificial intelligence, learning capabilities, and the ability to set and measure tolerable "thresholds of certainty" that allow this to become more and more autonomous.                                                                          

Do today's manufacturers who are still working in paper processes recognize that they have a problem?

I believe by now most modern organizations realize that paper is not an efficient way to handle business functions. However, because the amount of information (and therefore paper) has grown steadily for decades, many of these companies have developed elaborately complex paper pushing processes ...