Identifying the Socio-Human Inputs and Implications in Robotic Process Automation (RPA): A Systematic Mapping Study

Abstract

Recent studies show that the success rate of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) projects is between 50 and 70%. In cases where they are not successful, most failures are caused by organizational factors, i.e., people and their social environment. People in the organization have a significant influence on the success of a RPA project. Likewise, the implementation of RPA will bring some implications to them as well. This research is a preliminary study on visualization socio-human implications (VoSHI) in the RPA projects. As one of the office automation technologies, the application of RPA provides economic benefits and social implications. Unfortunately, most studies highlight the benefits and lack discussions on the impact of RPA on humans. This paper presents a systematic mapping study to analyze the current state-of-the-art on this topic, recognizing the socio-human implications of RPA implementations described in the literature. The research analyzed 56 primary studies selected from both academic digital libraries and grey literature. The results showed 16 positive and 6 negative implications of RPA implementations for humans and their social environment. Furthermore, this research also found 6 positive and 13 negative inputs contributed by humans, which can influence RPA implementations.

The Assessment of Robotic Process Automation Projects with a Portfolio Analysis

“…• Organizational: (1) the inability to prioritize RPA initiatives related to process selection, (2) aversion to risk, (3) limited RPA skills and talents, and (4) little sense of urgency [10].…”

“…2). As the company matures, it moves from one stage to the next and evolves from a process-centric focus to people-centric culture [10,27]. The Robotic Process Automation Maturity Model estimates and describes fourteen unique criteria to identify a company at a specific stage.…”

“…The two-variable approach does not guarantee a comprehensive assessment, it is necessary to have other variables such as costs, benefits, usability, technology readiness, and company readiness, as suggested by Axmann and Harmoko (2020) [10]. However, to speed up decisionmaking as well as the suitability assessment of RPA to the organization, the initiation of two variables is sufficient.…”

“…On the other hand, without maintenance, the error rate of bots will increase, and more time will be spent fixing the errors [9]. This dilemma leads decision-makers to drop Bots before reaping the benefits and returning to manual processes [10,11]. To avoid this circumstance, companies should select the right process by considering its complexity as well as the maturity of their automation.…”

The Assessment Model of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Project Using Benefit Study and Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Approach

“…RPA has been proven to provide benefits to companies. However, some companies, especially SMEs failed because they considered that the implementation of RPA does not provide benefits that are worth the sacrifices made [8,9].The companies that have implemented RPA sometimes feel stuck, and choosing not to continue the RPA project [10]. This is partly because these companies do not know how to assess the performance and success of their RPA Projects.…”