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Category Archives: Automation

The Secrets of Successful Automation of Your Home – Influencive

Posted: July 18, 2021 at 5:27 pm

Are you thinking of automating your home? It is a wonderful idea. A properly automated home is safer, more convenient, and looks impressive. While many people believe that automation is something that only the wealthy ones can afford, it is far from the truth.

Automation doesnt cost as much as you might believe if you know how to use an electric linear actuator and have some basic DIY skills, you can turn your home into an automated hub without major investment.

Here we offer you some automation ideas that can be implemented by complete beginners. You can start with them, and when you gain more skills, you can automate just whatever you want in your home.

Everybody wants to have a functional kitchen. To create one, you need a lot of kitchen devices. And indeed, the more of them you have, the more you can automate cooking, washing, etc. However, usually, a kitchen is not the biggest room in a house. Moreover, the issue of free space becomes tenser if you live in a flat.

Here, automation comes in very handy. You can install plenty of devices with just a couple of automation ideas.

A telescopic column in one of your kitchen cabinets can serve as wonderful support for one of those devices that aren`t used constantly but still are needed. So, a food processor can be hidden inside the cabinet and rest there until you lift it with a push of a button. If you need to hide more devices, just install more telescopic columns.

If you need to hide those jars with spices or kitchen utensils, fix a popup rack in one of the wall-mounted cabinets. When you lower it, the needed items appear at the reach of your hand. When lifted, the rack is hidden in the kitchen cabinet.

What about additional storage space? It is something that is never sufficient. And under your bed, there is a lot of space that can be used, and it won`t bother you. Moreover, by automating the bed frame, you can make the use of its space absolutely safe and convenient.

Install a couple of linear actuators (make sure they are powerful enough, and their stroke length is sufficient to lift the frame to the needed level) so that in the extended position, they lift the bed frame. In the retracted position, the bed frame shall be located in its place.

Now, if you still don`t have anything under the bed, make a huge storage compartment (it can be made of wood, MDF, or whatever). The size? Well, it is up to you, we believe that the size of the bed is fine. If you need to store there different categories of things, divide the compartment into smaller spaces.

That`s it. Now, when you need to store something, just click a button and make the bed frame lift. Then, click the button and lower the bed frame.

This approach makes using the space under the bed not only more comfortably. It is much safer, too. Even if the power is cut or an actuator breaks down, the actuators are blocked in the same position. You can be sure that the bed frame isn`t going to crash down onto your head.

Many people would like to have an automated TV lift installation. But not many people have it. Now it is, however, not a luxury anymore, thanks to linear actuators.

You can install a TV lifting system in a cabinet and make an opening in the cabinet top to allow the device to lift and lower the TV set. Yep, from the expenses, you need a lift system.

Another option is to hide your device behind a bookcase, a shelf, or any other furniture piece.

If you have an advanced fireplace, you can install the TV set there, too.

As you can see, it is not so expensive (yes, it costs, but its price is much lower than you could imagine), and you can do it on your own, in a way you like.

Any other ideas? To tell the truth, they are unlimited. You can automate shelves, your desk, turn your usual armchair into a reclinable one, also with actuators. When you get some skills and learn more about actuators, you can continue with the automation of doors and windows. Further, you can move to the installation of a solar panel with a real sun tracker for maximum efficiency.

Some people like automating everything in their patios to impress friends and relatives. If you would love to try it, check projects, descriptions, and move on.

Published July 18th, 2021

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Finance automation: automate and create value in your finance team – The Drum

Posted: at 5:27 pm

There has been a huge focus on automation and digitization over the last few years. With the rise of machine learning and AI, business owners are looking at more and more areas within their business where they can utilize this technology.

If youre not already automating your bookkeeping, then you need to.

Here are my top five areas that you can start automating today.

Here are the areas of accounts payable you can start automating straight away:

Use a recurring bills function

Use an app such as hubdoc to collect all of your bills into your accounts system

Utilize the email bill to your accounts system straight from your inbox

Integrate your PO system for seamless PO generation and bill matching

Get your employees to submit their expenses directly to your accounts package

Implementing some of these will save time and duplication of tasks and allow your workflow to be more efficient.

Automating our accounts receivable, in particular credit control, has been a huge time-saver.

Here are some of the accounts receivable functions that can be easily automated:

Debtor chasing

Integrated invoicing with your operating system

Setting up automatically emailed invoices direct to your customer (useful if you send regular invoices that are consistent amounts)

If you only do one of these, I absolutely recommend implementing a debtor-chasing app that integrates to your system. This will send automatic chasing emails from a template and at intervals set by you. While you will have to pay for one of these services, the time you will win back makes it worthwhile.

Importing your bank and credit card transactions is an easy time-saver.

Reconciliations are so much simpler as the transactions are imported daily, and this cuts down human error as they are automatically imported. They match off quickly with invoices and bills, which are in the system awaiting payment. The whole process is so much quicker and easier and you have better visibility of your balances on a daily basis. Most systems automatically remember where you coded similar transactions too, so are auto-populated.

Are you still managing cash flow on Google sheets or even a spreadsheet? If so, stop now.

The best piece of automation we have implemented within the finance function without a doubt is our cash-flow management.

We use an external cloud-based cash flow tool (there are many available with a quick Google) and this integrates to our accounts software.

Some of the benefits of using an integrated cash flow tool include:

Real-time cash flow updates (due to integrations with accounts and automated daily banking reconciliations)

Planned to pay dates for bills and invoices are updated automatically as they get updated in the accounts system

Full visibility of when client/supplier invoices are due

Variance tracking of cash in and out

Scenario planning/cash flow modelling

Ability to add your forecasts in to give a realistic look of where cash will likely be at any given time in future months

My final recommendation for automation has to be your management accounts. This is not an easy area to automate and we have had to use multiple data specialists to start pulling this together, but the end result presents information in a more user-friendly way for all relevant stakeholders of the business in one place.

You can go from manually compiling a spreadsheet with data, leaving you open to error, to populating a more sophisticated version using imports from trial balances and data from other areas such as operations and sales.

We are now working towards an integrated dashboard, which populates a monthly report using data straight from our accounts package and from other data sources in the business.

This will give us a complete BI Dashboard, which can be tailored for different areas of the business in an easy-to-interpret way and that takes a fraction of the time to put together, meaning month-end reporting is quicker and more accurate. Who doesnt want to save time during month end?

Before we automated these areas, a huge amount of our time was taken up on basic bookkeeping and administration. Once we had automation processes in place, it enabled us time to focus more strategically on the business, and this is where the finance team is best utilized. We also have the added knowledge of knowing our data is more accurate due to the integration of systems with less manual entry.

If you can automate some of these areas you will most definitely allow your finance team more time to add real value to your business instead of being bogged down by mundane administrative tasks.

Julie Rodrrigues is finance manager at Hallam.

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How Automation is Helping Industry Adapt to Today’s Workforce Reality – Automation World

Posted: at 5:27 pm

From increasing use of automation and starting wages that are considered too low to the lackluster image of industrial work, theres no shortage of opinions about the factors contributing to the current shortage of skilled workers in the industrial production industries. Confronted with a shortage of available workers, industrial companies are increasingly turning to technology to maintain their operations.

Aaron Crews, director for modernization solutions and consulting at Emerson said the personnel shortage in manufacturing has lasted long enough that organizations are now hyper-focused on helping existing workers be more efficient and effective. And the key to doing more with fewer personnel is ensuring personnel have clear, contextualized visibility into their processes and equipment no matter where they are.

Aaron Crews, director for modernization solutions and consulting at Emerson.He clarified his point by noting that plants dont need the highest level of expertise all the time, instead they need smart systems that determine when expert help is needed, and then deliver information in context to experts wherever they are. Todays workers are mobile, and control systems embracing mobility help personnel be more effective. Organizations expect digital tools to drive DCS (distributed control systems) data from the plant level to the enterprise, where smaller groups of experts can manage entire fleets across the country or across the globe without the expense and delay of travel.

More continuous processing industry customers are using advanced and state-based control to capture expert knowledge and encapsulate it in control logic, said Crews. As experts retire, the knowledge they have built up over years in the plant can be captured as automated control strategies to ensure the control of critical process variables permanently resides in the control structure and are performed reliably every time.

Josh Eastburn, director of technical marketing at Opto 22.Josh Eastburn, director of technical marketing at Opto 22, said they have seen customers use remote access and data acquisition, built on edge computing, to reduce the need for on-site labor by as much as 50%. He cited an example of how Engenuity Inc., an oil and gas industry OEM, is using these technologies to validate pressure testing of blowout preventers and well control equipment.

Despite the ability of technology to reduce the number of workers needed in industrial operations, some contend that manufacturing and processing industries increasing deployment of modern technologies can also be an important factor in attracting the workforce of the future.

Jesse Hill, process industry manager at Beckhoff Automation.Jesse Hill, process industry manager at Beckhoff Automation, said, Embracing new technologies is key to providing a pool of talent for the process industries. A generation of engineers with experience in traditional process technologies such as 4-20mA, HART, Foundation Fieldbus, etc., is exiting the workforce. Now, processing facilities need to replace this talent with a younger workforce that is schooled on emerging technologies, which is where their interest lies.

He cited Beckhoffs TwinCAT automation software as an example of this because it gives engineers the capability to program in the language they are most familiar with or that suits the application best, whether thats real time code using object-oriented extensions of IEC 61131-3, standard PLC function blocks, or interfacing to computer science standard languages, such as .Net or Python. Also, advanced functionality like analytics, machine learning, and simulation using MatLab/Simulink can be implemented directly in the standard engineering environment and deployed on our scalable industrial PCs.

Michael Risse, vice president and chief marketing officer at Seeq.The hiring benefits of using technologies the younger workforce is more familiar with is a key realization more companies should be aware of, according to Michael Risse, vice president and chief marketing officer at Seeq (a supplier of industrial analytics software). We dont see a labor issue [impacting the available workforce] so much as an enabling employee discussion, or even a demand from younger employees, he said.Younger generations expect something better than the 30-year-old tradition of spreadsheets and historians. They are frequently comfortable with coding or scripting and, based on consumer experiences, they expect innovation in their software. Of course, that means they [expect to be able to] work from anywhere and the solutions [they use] must provide collaboration, like Google docs.

Kevin Finnan, Yokogawa industry consultant.Kevin Finnan, Yokogawa industry consultant said, Our robotics portfolio addresses the dirty and dangerous [aspects of process industry work] by using robots to venture into hazardous industrial areas. As a result, one of our customers in the process of digital transformation is changing the role of process operators [in its plants] to production analysts. This means these workers will transition away from constant attention to their screens to monitor the condition of the process at a given moment. Instead of responding to unplanned events, they will support optimization. Their focus will be on automation performance and solving performance shortcomings.

Hill added, The more we can implement these types of new technologies, the better chance we have to recruit and retain this talent in our industry. [In fact], this is an area where I think remote access can help in recruitment. Many in this next generation of engineers may not be as enthusiastic about putting on fire-resistant smocks, steel-toe shoes and hard hats to go to work every day. If much of this engineering and monitoring can be done from comfortable offices, this will lead to higher recruitment of talent into the process industries.

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Facebook is notifying some users whose posts were removed by automation – Yahoo Tech

Posted: at 5:27 pm

Facebook is testing a change that will let users know when their post was removed as a result of automation. The new experiment comes in response to the Oversight Board, which has said the social network should be more transparent with users about how their posts are removed.

The company revealed the new test in a new report that provides updates on how Facebook is handling the Oversight Boards policy recommendations. The test comes in response to one of the first cases the Oversight Board took up, which dealt with an Instagram post meant to raise awareness of breast cancer that the company removed under its nudity rules.

Facebook restored the post, saying its automated systems had made a mistake, and updated Instagrams rules to allow for health-related nudity. But the Oversight Board had also recommended that Facebook alert users in cases when a post was removed with automation rather than as a result of a human content reviewer. Facebook previously said it would test this change, which is now in effect.

Weve launched a test on Facebook to assess the impact of telling people more about whether automation was involved in enforcement, facebook writes in its report. People in the test now see whether technology or a Facebook content reviewer made the enforcement decision about their content. We will analyze the results to see if people had a clearer understanding of who removed their content, while also watching for a potential rise in recidivism and appeals rates. The company added that it will provide an update on the test later this year.

The report also shed some additional insight into how the company is working with the Oversight Board. The report notes that between November 2020 and March 2021 it referred 26 cases to the board, though its only chosen to take up three one of which was in response to its suspension of Donald Trump. (Notably, the latest report only covers the first quarter of 2021, so it doesnt address the boards recommendations in response to Trumps suspension.)

Though the Oversight Board has only weighed in on a handful of cases, its decisions have resulted in a few policy changes by Facebook that could have a much broader effect. However, in some areas, the company has declined to follow up on its policy suggestions, such as one that Facebook study its own role in enabling the events of January 6th. In a blog post, the company noted that the size and scope of the boards recommendations go beyond the policy guidance that we first anticipated when we set up the board, and several require multi-month or multi-year investments.

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Two of the biggest topics facing miners are electrification and automation – Mining Journal

Posted: at 5:27 pm

Auto-mate solutions & implementations manager Damien Williams believes that may bring the best of both those worlds.

To his mind automation will bring the best out of electric vehicles and electrification will make it much easier to automate equipment.

"It's not really one driving the other or one hindering the other," he said.

"They are almost symbiotic."

Consider what is happening in the automotive sphere.

The internal combustion engine has ruled the automotive world for more than one century and the approach has been pretty much unchanged for all that time. The engine feeds into the drive train that turns the wheels and moves the car forward.

Electric vehicle makers have turned to wheel motors, replacing the drive train and all the complications that come with that. It makes for a much simpler approach.

Mining truck makers are already across this of course. Electric drive haul trucks have been making use of wheel motors for decades. Yes, those trucks use a diesel engine but that is just the power source for the wheel motors. It could theoretically be a battery.

Williams said this approach would benefit automation.

"Let's get the energy source driving the components directly," he said.

Williams' argument is that by removing the drivetrain and hydraulic gearboxes and replacing them with electric motors, automation systems become much more effective.

Removing those components removes the "noise".

"It's a reduction of input-output complexity," Williams said.

"Your control of that machine can be much tighter.

"You are taking away layers of conversion."

Williams said that approach became even more effective when applied to other pieces of equipment such as drills where diesel engines play an even bigger part driving hydraulics and air compressors.

"In addition to the myriad of transfer systems you have to monitor, parasitic loss occurs from the moment the piston fires until it activates the movement or pressure of hydraulic fluid or air. Without these steps you can be more accurate and economical in your autonomous control, critical on conventional drills where the air supply can directly impact the quality of the holes being drilled," he said.

Williams argues that using electric motors to provide the drill torque could give an even better outcome, particularly when considering introducing automation to the drilling process.

The "noise" internal combustion engines bring to the control process means automation systems providers have to start introducing fuzzy logic to compensate.

"We can be so much more effective when we don't have to use fuzzy logic," Williams said.

"With an internal combustion engine, you have more variability in output due to the underlaying design, for example what position is each cylinder is in before it starts, what condition is it in and which one is going to fire first.

"It is so much simpler with electric motors, the design complexity is not there."

"A drive to automate EV's is going to come down to management and conversion of energy."

Williams said electrification of equipment provided other issues that would have impacts on operators.

Heating is one of them. While not such an issue in Australian operations, consider those operations where the temperature goes well below 0C.

With conventional equipment waste heat from the diesels provides that heating.

"With electric vehicle providing heating can be very energy intensive," Williams said.

"You may have to put on additional componentry.

"However, if the machine is automated, there is no operator and no need for heat."

Torque is another issue. Electric vehicles can bring an enormous amount of torque to bear, which can make for an uncomfortable ride for the operator. No operator, no need to worry about that and the full torque the machine is capable of can be brought to bear optimally.

Range anxiety is a problem facing EV use and Williams believes automation can play a role in alleviating that.

"An automation platform can be tuned to get the best productivity and efficiency for an electric drive system," he said. "if there are acceleration or speed parameters for machines that will get the best efficiency from their electric energy source we can tailor our systems to achieve this."

"In addition, automation allows us to look beyond our immediate horizon, we know a logistics and support function beyond light vehicles will be needed to support the mine of the future and so we've been investing into a fit for purpose EV platform to do just this."

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Office workers welcome automation but worry about their jobs – BetaNews

Posted: at 5:27 pm

Workers in IT, HR, finance and other roles welcome the use of tools that automate processes and improve productivity -- but many are concerned automation might someday make their jobs less relevant.

A study by Thirdera, specialist in services for ServiceNow users, finds 83 percent of workers are using AI-powered search, chatbots, self-service portals, mobile apps, AIOps, business intelligence and dynamic scheduling tools every day, and 46 percent have been doing so for at least a year.

The most common use cases are IT service management platforms (68 percent), IT operations management platforms (57 percent) and financial management platforms (37 percent). They're also being used with CRM, ERP, HR and marketing automation platforms. Within this tools category, the most popular technologies are mobile apps (used by 69 percent of respondents), business intelligence tools (65 percent), self-service portals (53 percent), AI-powered search (44 percent), intelligent chatbots (36 percent) and dynamic scheduling tools (36 percent).

The research shows the tools are having a positive impact too, 69 percent say their productivity increased substantially by using these technologies. While 40 percent report saving at least six hours per week, and 67 percent are saving at least four hours per week. In addition 34 percent say ROI from the use of these tools was achieved in less than three months, 41 percent said three to six months, and 89 percent achieved ROI in less than a year. 48 percent of respondents have at least six business processes attached to the use of these technologies.

"These tools are tailor-made to automate employee workflows and improve productivity," says Jason Wojahn, CEO of Thirdera. "They can be used by IT to respond to service requests, HR to fulfill employee inquiries, employees to submit legal forms, and field-service managers to assign tasks. Most companies that deploy these tools experience a significant and rapid return on their investments. In our business, companies are using ServiceNow to automate these tasks and workflows end-to-end."

However, there is another side to the coin, 63 percent of respondents say they are concerned their company's use of these technologies will someday make their job functions less relevant. Other worries include technologies being too expensive (48 percent), and 38 percent saying the colleagues and/or customers they're serving with these technologies would prefer more human-to-human contact. Also, 32 percent say the tools malfunction frequently, and 26 percent think theyre hard to learn.

"The purpose of this survey was to validate our assumption that modern tech tools are improving employee workflows and productivity, which they clearly are," adds Wojahn. "What we also learned is that workers still have reservations about these tools, which means service providers like Thirdera have more work to do. For example, we need to be educating the market and showing users how more comprehensive patterns of automation can enhance their value and contributions to their organizations, and augment their ways of working rather than replace human-to-human contact."

You can find out more on the Thirdera site.

Photo Credit: Wright Studio/Shutterstock

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Automation is key to digital transformation – ComputerWeekly.com

Posted: at 5:27 pm

Automation is the only way for organisations to accelerate their digital transformation by freeing IT teams of repetitive tasks so that they can focus on driving transformative projects, according to UiPaths CEO and co-founder, Daniel Dines.

Speaking at a virtual media roundtable this week, Dines said IT teams implementing new enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, for example, often cannot cope with the myriad other tasks going on in the business at the same time.

Imagine if we are able to automate all these tasks, then we can free IT from countless hours of support and, at the same time, enable them to implement the new ERP without pressure and to do a proper job, he said. The alternative solution is to keep using people, which is insane.

Dines was responding to a question from Computer Weekly on the tendency for organisations to approach robotic process automation (RPA) from a cost and efficiency perspective rather than a transformation play.

In presenting his contrarian view, Dines argued that throughout history, automation has always paved the way for industry transformation.

Take the textile industries in India and Japan, for example. While India was ahead of Japan at the start of the 20th century, Dines said India, with its powerful labour unions, was worried about losing jobs to new machinery that helped to automate textile production.

Japan, on the other hand, embraced automation, growing wages in its textile industry to become one of the top textile exporters in the world at the time. Wages and job satisfaction had increased, while India didnt progress at all in the textile industry, he said.

This is the story of every transformation if you dont bring automation into transformation, you are stuck with numerous projects in IT departments, which have mounting fears of projects ahead of them and not having enough resources, he added.

Weighing in on the topic, Rick Harshman, UiPaths newly minted senior vice-president and managing director for Asia-Pacific and Japan, said that in his experience of working with customers, automation was not seen as a way to do more with less.

Its about how to modernise, transform and refactor, and as part of that refactoring that goes on with these applications, how we can automate that, said Harshman. Whether its in financial services, healthcare, manufacturing or media, were seeing that time and again.

The Asia-Pacific region and markets in its constituent countries have been growth engines for RPA in recent years, accounting for roughly 17% of the global market for RPA services, according to Forrester.

Particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic, firms large and small have shown interest in automation, a Forrester study found. However, some companies continue to face challenges and some region-specific obstacles along the path to maturity.

These include the perennial challenge of scaling up RPA implementations, with many organisations dipping their toes into automation for the first time but having yet to expand their RPA initiatives in spite of Covid-19.

Thai telco AIS is one exception. Currently in the second stage of its RPA programme, AIS has expanded its RPA deployment and is training citizen developers with hundreds of use cases in progress.

RPA has made real differences in the lives of our employees, allowing them to reduce or eliminate repetitive, rules-based tasks and focus on more creative, innovative work, said Arakin Rakchittapoke, head of novel engine execution team at AIS Thailand.

According to Forrester, most tenured RPA programmes show moderate levels of maturity, even as they grapple with the short supply of talent in Asia-Pacific. The shortage is particularly acute for technical-functional roles like business analysts and RPA operations staff.

Many RPA programmes in the region are also IT-led, ensuring RPA roll-outs are aligned with existing organisational standards for technology deployment, Forrester noted, adding that collaboration between business and IT is still evolving.

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Understaffed Ad Agencies Are Turning to Outsourcing and Automation – Business Insider

Posted: at 5:27 pm

Ad agencies are gearing up for a frenzy of new business pitches butlack the staffto handle them.

Agencies have a big opportunity to win business as brands restart spending and put billions of ad spend up for grabs.

But Graham Brown, cofounder and CEO of agency search firm MediaSense, said brands for media-buying pitches in particular are demanding more complex ideas and costly ways of targeting consumers, which takes big agency teams.

At the same time, burned out people are leaving the ad industry in droves and agencies are having trouble recruiting talent to fill hundreds of open roles. All this is adding up to agencies having to sit out certain pitches.

Brown said agencies are "being much more discerning with what they will pitch for and what they won't pitch for."

Brown said that with agencies facing as much as $300,000 to $500,000 in cost to pitch an account worth around $500 million, they're only going for one or two large global pitches at a time, while they may have juggled three or four in the past.

When agencies do pitch, they're using "all resources freelancers, folks from other offices, interns and yes, automation," said Joanne Davis, founder and president of search firm Joanne Davis Consulting.

Davis said she's seeing many agencies pulling in employees from different offices to participate in a pitch, which is easier to do in the remote work environment.

"We have been doing more cross-office pitching than we normally do but mostly keep it to the coasts," said Jason Harris, CEO and president of ad agency Mekanism. He said the agency will pair its East Coast and West Coast offices to pitch accounts.

One holding company exec said they're seeing ad agencies everywhere using more freelancers to pitch new business.

Agencies are also leaning on automation to fill their staffing gaps.

One company they're using is Helixa, a consumer insights platform, which automates data and strategy work.

Christine Burke, Helixa VP of growth, said the platform has gotten an influx of business from agencies since the pandemic, when agencies laid off staff and had to do more with less.

Helixa uses AI to figure out what people are interested in buying based on their social media habits. She said agencies mostly use it for pitching new business, but also for existing clients.

She said one agency used Helixa to win an energy drink brand and was surprised to learn that the brand attracted a lot of people over age 50, not just young gamers.

One Helixa client is WPP's VMLY&R agency, which said the platform is saving the agency from having to use multiple tools to get the same information.

The shift toward automation and outsourcing may continue even if the labor crunch subsides.

Brown said agencies are also pushing their clients to think about offshoring, nearshoring, and outsourcing back-office operations like pre- and post-campaign work, ad serving, and platform management.

An agency "can only work on so many challenges" at a time, he said.

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Why Intelligent Automation Is The Way Forward For Business – Analytics Insight

Posted: at 5:27 pm

There have been huge leaps and bounds in the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning recently, with many wanting to jump on the bandwagon and implement the best technology for their business. However, there is a much better option when it comes to automating your business: Intelligent Automation platforms. IA provider Cortex explains why the technology is transforming businesses and driving economic growth:

Intelligent Automation is the use of automated technologies that adapt to your business and streamline decision-making processes to deliver a unified solution that helps improve the efficiency of your business. By simplifying processes, IA is a powerful way to improve productivity whilst reducing human error.

By combining Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management (BPM) to automate workflow, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to complete back-office tasks, you can reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services.

IA solutions create a fully self-managing, self-healing system with minimal upkeep and maximum efficiency. By mimicking human reasoning it has the capacity to adapt.

For IA to be successful in its implementation, it must be smart in sensing its environment, intelligent in evaluating context, and reliable in making decisions and recognizing exceptions. Thanks to the development and research into IA, the platforms have already reached the point where they can achieve these goals.

As a completely unified system, IA can be implemented with ease into your business.

Cortex is the first integrated Intelligent Automation platform that can provide complex event management, machine intelligence, and orchestrated process automation in a single automation platform. Due to this, it can be implemented without code to provide a solution that integrates rapidly with your existing technology tools.

There is no need to completely scrap your current systems. Due to the ease of implementation, you can simply, and effectively, begin automating your business processes with proven technology.

IA can be easily introduced to the systems of many types of business.

For ITOps, AIOps, and Enterprise Services it can intelligently orchestrate and automate end-to-end business processes and workflows. Telecommunications Intelligent Automation

transforms the cost, quality, and performance of Network Operations, Service Operations, and Enterprise Business Services.

The capabilities to organize existing systems, and rapid augmentation technology, means that Banking, Financial Services or Insurance operations can also be streamlined, allowing businesses to benefit from increased scalability and flexibility.

Not only does IA simplify the process for your business without the issue of human error, but it can increase your ROI with incredible velocity.

Whereas the arguments for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in business are still inconclusive, Intelligent Automation has already been proven to go above and beyond when it comes to automating your systems.

AI, as a concept, requires a system to have the capacity to think like a human. Whilst still in development, this holds limited ways to successfully implement an AI solution into your business.

Machine learning is a subset of AI and takes automation a step further by utilizing data to predict future necessities. However, the system lacks the streamlined and reliable quality of output that Intelligent Automation provides, making IA a preferable solution for most organizations.

With 98% of incidents automated for self-healing and 80% of responses automated for self-management, alongside the proven success of the technology, Intelligent Automation really is the future of business.

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Analytics Insight is an influential platform dedicated to insights, trends, and opinions from the world of data-driven technologies. It monitors developments, recognition, and achievements made by Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Analytics companies across the globe.

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Startek Announces Collaboration with Automation Anywhere to Strengthen its Robotic Process Automation Capabilities – Business Wire

Posted: at 5:27 pm

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. & MUMBAI, India--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Startek (NYSE: SRT), a global provider of customer experience management solutions, announced a strategic collaboration with Automation Anywhere, a global leader in cloud robotic process automation (RPA). By joining forces, Startek, along with Automation Anywhere, will implement AI-powered RPA capabilities across its customer experience (CX) value chain by efficiently catering to the growing demand from its partners.

This collaboration will support Startek's vision to fast-track access and benefits of Intelligent RPA, digital workforce, and other value-added services across its global customer business processes. Democratizing the Automation Anywhere platform and leveraging cloud-managed delivery will also enable Startek to identify automation opportunities and build robust CX solutions, accelerating efficiency and customer cycle time value. This partnership's key objectives also include supporting RPA skill development through strategic investments in Enablement, Advisory, CX, and Industry-specific solutions. It will also provide technical guidance, testing, development of software bots, and complimentary RPA training and support.

Sanjeev Sinha, Global CIO and Chief Digital Officer, Startek, said, "By partnering with Automation Anywhere, we can now leverage intelligent automation capabilities at a global scale by driving increased productivity while managing costs and turnaround time. This collaboration is a significant milestone in our digital transformation journey and is an indicator of our progress on the RPA maturity curve."

Startek has been continually investing in driving effective digital transformation across various operating modules. With this joint offering in RPA and AI, Startek aims to further strengthen its track record of intelligent delivery by automating processes, thus enabling organizations to streamline their operations and spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time supporting business-critical projects.

"Customers are facing a real-time challenge in managing the increased volume of work with limited resources. Intelligent Automation plays a crucial role in augmenting business processes across front, middle and back offices by seamlessly communicating with the applications and automating mundane, repetitive tasks," said Milan Sheth, EVP-IMEA, Automation Anywhere.

The company is looking at leveraging Automation powered by digital and data as a proven tactic to accelerate customer win-rates, future proof existing customer engagements, and enable better Go-to-Market strategies. This partnership will further help Startek clients future-proof their RPA journey with an enterprise-grade platform, which unites sophisticated RPA, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and embedded analytical technologies.

About Startek

Startek is a global provider of tech-enabled business process management solutions. The company provides omni-channel customer experience, digital transformation, and technology services to some of the finest brands globally. Startek is committed to impacting clients business outcomes by focusing on enhancing customer experience and digital & AI enablement across all touch points and channels. Startek has more than 40,000 CX experts spread across 46 delivery campuses in 13 countries. The company services over 250 clients across a range of industries such as Banking and Financial Services, Insurance, Technology, Telecom, Healthcare, Travel & Hospitality, Ecommerce, Consumer Goods, Retail, and Energy & Utilities. To learn more about Starteks global solutions, please visit http://www.startek.com.

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Startek Announces Collaboration with Automation Anywhere to Strengthen its Robotic Process Automation Capabilities - Business Wire

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