Category Archives: Automation

One in 10 jobs in Australia are at risk of being automated as the economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, a new reports says.

In comparison, wealthier and affluent urban areas face the least risk of jobs being automated.

Jobs most at risk from automation

The OECD estimates 36 per cent of Australian jobs are at risk of being automated, compared with the OECD average of 46 per cent. About 11 per cent of jobs face a high risk of being automated. A further 25 per cent face major changes.

Plant and machinery operators and food preparation workers are among the employment sectors most at risk.

Young people, men and Indigenous people were also more likely to have declining job opportunities.

Where will it be felt hardest?

Regional towns and cities will be among the most affected by automation. Many of these have traditional industries such as coal mining.

About 40 per cent of jobs in the New South Wales Hunter Region face some disruption while in Queensland's Mackay region it was about 41 per cent.

In comparison, Canberra and Sydney's eastern suburbs face the lowest risk of jobs lost through automation.

Which jobs have the best prospects?

The COVID-19 crisis accelerated the shift from traditional industries to teaching and health, the OECD says.

One in seven Australians today work in health or social services, a 100,000 rise over the past 12 months.

In Australia, health or social services now account for more than 14 per cent of all jobs.

What about protecting jobs?

The OECD says some workers will have their duties upskilled to replace their routines duties. This would ensure they could carry out non-routine tasks that could not be achieved through automation.

This trend is increasingly common in the mining and resource industries.

Federal and state governments needed to continue this to encourage a shift away from sectors that have traditional jobs.

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Automation puts one in 10 Aussie jobs at risk, report warns - 9News

Major consumer brands like Barilla, Kraft Heinz, Pepsico and General Mills collaborated with PMMI member OEMs such as Spee Dee, Garvey, Delkor, and Poly Pack to prioritize challenges facing the industry today as well as in the next three to six years.

The biggest ask from CPGs is machinery that is more intuitive for easier operations, especially with continued workforce shortages. Two-thirds of the audience voted this the most challenging issue facing the industry today. One CPG called for machinery that is Amazon-easy to operate.

Forty-two percent of participants called for earlier collaboration between stakeholders including contract packagers/manufacturers.

Better partnerships with deeper communication are keys to success. Dont wait to tell us about a problem or shortage, said one CPG. Often, we can help source steel or components because of our global connections.

About a third of participants point to workforce issues as an opportunity to help boost ROI for automation projects, especially connectivity to aid in remote monitoring, diagnostics, etc. Although everyone agrees that when you talk machine connectivity, you are introducing cyber security issues.

The discussion turned more passionate when moderator Jorge Izquierdo, VP of Market Development for PMMI, asked about projecting problem issues three to six years in the future. Many issues garnered the same amount of interest, with no one issue emerging above others.

The number-one issue in the future will be sustainability and recycling initiatives, including education for industry and consumers. The industry needs to address our role in waste and climate change, said one participant.

Another crisis tied to workforce is making the packaging industry attractive to young workers. Working with schools to create a curriculum that will prepare students for specific jobs was suggested. A clear way to attract young gamers is the application of virtual and augmented reality, said one participant.

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PMMI's Top to Top addresses automation, workforce woes and sustainability - Packaging World

New report reveals CIOs have a key role in demonstrating value and becoming champions of intelligent automation

NEW YORK, September 23, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UiPath (NYSE: PATH), a leading enterprise automation software company, today published the findings of a report based on interviews with enterprise CIOs in Europe. The findings reveal that hybrid work, increasing demands from customers, and challenges from new competition are driving organizations to automation-first strategies built on robotic process automation (RPA), AI, and low-code and no-code tools.

The report, Towards The Fully Automated Enterprise, was authored by CIONET to understand CIOs role in orchestrating the reinvention of business and the redesign of work. CIOs reported the significant changes caused by the pandemic on business practices are resulting in implementations of enterprise automation to achieve replacement of legacy systems with modern solutions (29%), comprehensive process reengineering (26%), and elimination of repetitive work with RPA (24%)i.

The report also highlights that the benefits of adopting intelligent automation are available only to those businesses in which CIOs become sponsors of innovation and proponents of governance and involve the IT organization as early as possible. The CIOs stated that intelligent automation will play a key role in levelling the playing field between incumbents and digital leaders during the next five years.

According to the report, leading CIOs are currently using software robots to:

Assist or remove employees from low-value, repetitive tasks, redesigning mission-critical business workflows and, in some cases, adopting new business models.

Strengthen their relationships with consumers and business customers alike by applying software robots to assist in analyzing vast amounts of data that is emerging from online channels and connected products and services.

Accelerate product and service innovation by transforming their organizations into digital businesses, where open platforms, ecosystems, and new development tools can reduce the time to market dramatically.

Respondents shared that currently, the adoption of automation is still at an early stage of maturity, with a lot of potential remaining untapped. Deployment strategies include applying short-term fixes to reduce costs and speed up critical processes, adopting an evolutionary approach and saving major disruption while generating business benefits, and taking radical action such as replacing legacy systems entirely or adopting new solution models.

Story continues

CIOs play a pivotal role in driving the adoption of intelligent automation across the enterprise. Having achieved successful cloud and mobile platform migrations, the CIOs surveyed believe that automation is set to become "their next big thing." In order to take the lead on automation and become sponsors of innovation, CIOs must undertake the following actions:

Evaluate RPA, AI, and process mining through controlled pilots, sponsored where possible at group level. Examine appropriate platforms that will enable the scaling up of RPA as and when value is proven;

Inform peers in the C-suite of the potential opportunities and benefits that automation brings and agree to an appropriate roadmap; and

Work with lines of business to explore and test low code/no code approaches toward intelligent automation.

"Innovation and digitalization will make our lives better. So, our role is to be humble on the one hand and brave on the other. Before choosing our preferred automation tool, we looked at the market and sought the best solution to use in our organization. As a result, we are using UiPath, and in our experience, this is an easy-to-use and stable end-to-end automation platform. We are currently running more than 100 robots, which in 2020 only performed more than 30 million transactions," Adam Marciniak, former CIO of PKO Bank Polski, said.

"At Euroclear, we process a lot of unstructured data in the back office. For that we use software robots especially unattended robots that can check for sanctions of run anti-money laundering checks. It would simply be impossible to scale ones business in these areas because then your operations would be overblown. Thats why RPA is the next big thing because it allows one to scale their business while cutting down on operational costs," said Micha Paprocki, CIO at Euroclear.

"For the past decades, building the fully automated enterprise has been an ongoing journey for many CIOs. Today, organizations can unlock enterprise automation technology that can accelerate the reinvention of business, boosting productivity to best cope with increased customer demands and the new reality of hybrid work," Renzo Taal, Senior Vice President & Managing Director EMEA at UiPath, said. "And, in doing so, they can attain digital leadership in a competitive global business landscape by transforming their business into a fully automated enterprise."

Download the Towards The Fully Automated Enterprise report here. The report was developed by CIONET, the leading community of more than 10,000 senior IT executives in Europe and Latin America in partnership with UiPath, based on interviews with CIOs from 15 leading Europe-based enterprises.

About UiPath

UiPath has a vision to deliver the Fully Automated Enterprise, one where companies use automation to unlock their greatest potential. UiPath offers an end-to-end platform for automation, combining the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities that enable every organization to rapidly scale digital business operations.

______________________________i Source: CIONEXT Reinvent Business, Reinvent Work May 5, 2021

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210923005063/en/

Contacts

Georgeta GheorgheUiPath Public Relationspr@uipath.com

Kelsey TurcotteUiPath Investor Relationsinvestor.relations@uipath.com

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CIOs Believe Automation is Imperative to Solve Productivity Challenges and Accelerate Digital Transformation - Yahoo Finance

IT automation is an important feature of any successful business, especially one thats undergoing digital transformation. Orchestrating IT automation leads to greater efficiency and can lend itself to a hyper automation business model where automation exists in every part of the business.

If youre considering IT automation, let this article be your guide. Here we will:

So, stay tuned for everything you need to know about IT automation!

IT automation is the process that sets rules for IT tasks so that they can be completed, automatically or upon trigger, by a machine.

Automation leaves humans people to work in areas of IT where their efforts are better spent, like strategizing or developing (and not on rote tasks like password resets). In practice, IT automation replaces manual tasks with automatic ones in important areas like:

When it comes to automating IT tasks, there is a broad scope to consider. Automation could be as minimal as automating individual one-off tasks or as intensive as automatic full deployments. IT automation and orchestration are related but different:

(Go deeper into the automation vs orchestration comparison.)

There are several uses for IT automation. In your digital enterprise, count on automating the following areas for greater efficiency in your organization:

With businesses running multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments, its never been more important to automate routine cloud processes. By including IT automation in your cloud operations, you get closer to full orchestration and, ultimately, running at peak effectiveness.

To get started with cloud automation, single-out individual and clusters of cloud processes to automate. These clouds might not be your most important ones yet. Start small, and as you build on success, you can expand to automating more vital clouds.

The service desk is one area that every company has (or should have!) that is ripe for automation. There are plenty of areas where uncomplicated task automation can have an immediate impact, as ITSM expert Kirstie Magowan points out:

(See tips for beginning to automate the service desk.)

Automation is a key principle of DevOps. Without automation in your software development practice, you likely arent fully embracing DevOps. DevOps automation can apply across the software development lifecycle (SDLC), especially in:

(Explore the close roles of automation and DevOps practices.)

Automating business processes is something Gartner defines as:

The automation of complex business processes and functions beyond conventional data manipulation and record-keeping activities, usually through the use of advanced technologies.

Enhancements to process automation are currently being led by these cognitive technologies, including:

The business process automation (BPA) market is estimated to be worth $232 billion USD by the year 2025.

Configuration is one of those necessary functions when you run a digital business. With multiple cloud services, servers, networks, and environments, there is no shortage of things to configure. By automating configuration, you can:

When working within a digital business, provisioning resources is essential. This refers to sharing and allocating space and user access to servers, programs and cloud processes required to do your job effectively. And its a great place to automate.

(Learn more about infrastructure automation platforms.)

Security process automation, like monitoring and response, can help IT professionals offload routine security processes so they can focus on things like bug fixes, testing and infrastructure issues.

There are many benefits of automation. Here some of the ones we believe are the most critical to digital businesses:

When productivity is at peak efficiency, digital enterprises save money.

Not only that, but labor spending is also reduced and workers spend time and resources working on more important, value-added tasks. The result can be significant cost savings.

While cost goes down with IT automation, operational efficiency increases. Development gets faster when time-consuming tasks like configuration are taken from developers and implemented automatically,instead. This also results in:

Automation helps businesses enhance their security. By removing time-consuming and effort-filled tasks like monitoring from the developers responsibilities through automation, developers and other cybersecurity professionals can focus proactively on preventing vulnerabilities and threats from becoming larger problems.

When you automate IT processes, you reduce the chance for human error. As a result, fewer errors occur and an error-free business is more efficient and better at servicing customers. With less chance for human error, your business can focus on what you do bestnot on resolving issues.

Orchestration and hyper automation are important goals for digital businesses to strive to achieve as they continue their digital evolution. The most successful and competitive digital businesses will automate and orchestrate as many tasks and processes as possible to ensure the best use of resources, service delivery and customer satisfaction.

(Become a hyper automated business.)

Here are some tips that developers can use when deploying IT automation:

IT automation will continue to be useful for companies that want to evolve as a digital enterprise. In todays business economy, companies have only begun to realize the benefits of machine learning. Automation of critical infrastructure will expand as knowledge of machine learning applications in business does.

In addition to more inventive business uses for machine learning, theres also the continued evolution of scripting tools that will change how automation is used in IT. Finally, automation creates opportunities to discover new metrics that offer insights about your companys performance.

These postings are my own and do not necessarily represent BMC's position, strategies, or opinion.

See an error or have a suggestion? Please let us know by emailing blogs@bmc.com.

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IT Automation: How It Works & Why You Need it BMC Software ...

CHICAGO, Sept. 23, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Thoughtful Automation, the first and only cost-effective automation-as-a-service platform for mid-market companies, today announced a $5 million Seed funding round. The round was led by Columbus-based venture capital firm Drive Capital.

Thoughtful Automation provides mid-market companies with a digital workforce management platform that offers customization, implementation, and continued monitoring and optimization of digital workers (or bots). As companies across the healthcare, legal, and financial services industries continue to grapple with labor shortages and decreasing employee satisfaction with manual work, Thoughtful Automations digital workers provide a much-needed boost to companies struggling to fill back office roles while also freeing up staff for higher value and more fulfilling work.

Digital workers are transforming large enterprises, but until now, mid-market companies have been priced out, said Alex Zekoff, cofounder and CEO of Thoughtful Automation. Thoughtful Automation helps mid-market companies rapidly introduce digital workers, becoming more productive and freeing up staff for more engaging and higher value work. The platform is easy to use and has a fast onboarding experience with 300% return on investment in the first year alone.

With Thoughtful Automations platform and digital workers, mid-market companies can:

"Ultimately, our vision is to open our platform to other automation developers. We want to build trust and transparency between humans and their digital co-workers," added Zekoff.

The seed funding will be used to expand Thoughtful Automations platform and further develop offerings and capabilities to support business automation for middle market companies. The company also recently relocated to Chicagos West Loop neighborhood from San Francisco.

Software automation is an entirely new category of work, and just like the traditional work done by people, work handled by software needs to be managed and optimized," said Nick Solaro, Partner at Drive Capital. "Thoughtful Automation understands this new work paradigm and their solution is making software automation accessible, affordable, and easy to deploy for mid market companies."

For more information about Thoughtful Automation, visit http://www.thoughtfulautomation.com.

About Thoughtful Automation

Thoughtful Automation is the only automation-as-a-service provider with cost-effective, efficient, and scalable business automation solutions purpose-built for mid-market companies. Its intelligent automation technology and cloud-based digital management platform provides everything middle market businesses need to customize, implement, and continuously monitor and optimize digital workers. Thoughtful Automations digital management platform allows businesses to launch digital workers in a matter of weeks at a fraction of the cost.

Media Contact: Becca Reyes, rebecca@propllr.com

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Thoughtful Automation Raises $5M Seed Round to Automate Soul-Crushing Work and Improve Employee Happiness - GlobeNewswire

New technologies have the potential to make us all richer and to change the world of work for good. When the TUC polled workers in the run-up to our 150th anniversary in 2018, people overwhelmingly agreed (74 per cent) that improvements in technology could give them more control over their working lives, as opposed to the always-on culture fostered by many employers.

But there was also a weary cynicism that most of the benefits from new tech would be grabbed by business owners and that none would reach the shop floor. And there was widespread concern that automation would make work more oppressive, speeding up pace and intensity, and leave staff monitored ever more closely by bosses.

Our job as a union movement is to ensure working people win fair shares from the productivity boost that advances in tech will bring not least, through higher pay and more time with our families and to ensure that the growth of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) does not lead to more punitive and discriminatory ways of working, but rather higher-skilled and more satisfying work.

The fourth industrial revolution

Many workers are aware of the risks automation might pose to their jobs. But far less is known about the use of AI to manage people at work. And yet the use of AI in this way has accelerated during the pandemic.

Increasingly, AI is making life-changing decisions about who gets a job, who gets paid what salary and who gets selected for redundancy. Much more attention needs to be paid to the implications of being managed by a robot, not just the possibility of being replaced by one. Many are unaware when AI is being used to manage and monitor them, with fewer than one in three workers (31 per cent) consulted when any new forms of technology are introduced at their workplaces.

Staff directly managed by algorithm can find the experience dehumanising. When the TUC surveyed workers line-managed by AI systems last year, many described a sense of loneliness and constant pressure. Others complained of working life becoming alienating and monotonous. So how do we stop this from becoming the norm for millions in the future? Left unchecked AI could lead to greater work intensification, isolation and questions around fairness.

Weve already heard reports of staff being fired without a right to a human appeal because of malfunctions in AI systems. That is why the TUC is calling for new legal protections to be put in place to protect workers from unfair treatment and discrimination at the hands of AI.

UK law has failed to keep pace with developments in AI technology and urgently needs beefing up. In March of this year the TUC teamed up with leading employment lawyers Robin Allen QC and Dee Masters to publish a series of proposals. These included calling for a legal duty on employers to consult trade unions on the use of high-risk and intrusive forms of AI in the workplace; a legal right for all workers to have a human review of decisions made by AI systems so they can challenge those that are unfair and discriminatory; amendments to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Equality Act to guard against discriminatory algorithms; and a legal right to switch off from work so workers can create communication-free time in their lives.

We believe these reforms are desperately needed and should be supported by government and the business community. Trade unions do not want to stand in the way of innovation, but we do want to make sure that innovation benefits everyone at work and that people are protected from exploitation.

Managing change

In the past 30 years, industrial and technological change has been managed in ways that have harmed workers. The transition from a manufacturing to a service economy has been accompanied by weakened rights for workers, and since the financial crisis we have experienced a decade of feeble pay growth and increased insecurity at work.

We cannot afford to see this trend repeated as we emerge from the pandemic. The UK economy faces significant risks in the future including from new technology.

As well as posing a threat to peoples rights and basic dignity at work, automation and AI could also cause unpredictable and widespread disruption in the labour market, resulting in big spikes in unemployment and business failure. Ill never forget hosting former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane at a TUC seminar in 2015. I watched journalists jaws drop to the floor as he predicted that as many as 15 million UK jobs could be taken by robots as automation spreads through the workforce.

These forecasts are always uncertain, but Andys intervention was a timely reminder of the potential industrial and labour market upheaval that could lie ahead if we dont get this transition right. Those of us who lived through the de-industrialisation and mass unemployment of the 1980s dont want to see that kind of damage unleashed again.

That is why the TUC is pushing for ministers to set up a future of work taskforce of business, government and unions to prepare for the challenges ahead. And why we are calling for a permanent short-time working scheme as a post-pandemic legacy to help protect working people through periods of future economic change. Such a scheme would produce significant savings on redundancy, training and hiring costs, and enable firms to keep skilled staff on their books. And, crucially, it would act as a bridge for workers in industries and jobs most under threat from automation.

This approach would bring us in line with many other leading economies. Twenty-three OECD countries had short-time working schemes in place before the coronavirus pandemic, including Germany and Japan, as well as many US states.

There is no reason why the UK cant be a world leader in protecting working people too. If this pandemic has taught us anything it is that economic shocks can happen with little warning and that ways of working can change overnight. It is essential that workers interests are put at the heart of our post-pandemic economy, and that technological change is harnessed to improve, not degrade, working lives.

Frances OGrady is general secretary of the TUC.

This piece was originally published as part of our policy report on The Future of Work. To read the full report click here.

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Automation and the trade unions - New Statesman

TEL AVIV, Israel, Sept. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --With the influx of clinical trials, more data is being generated and must be collected, monitored, managed, and shared. The pharmaceutical industry is continuously striving to reduce complexity, streamline business processes and workflows, and increase efficiency in analysing the data.

The first such webinar will take place on Tuesday, Oct, 5, 2021 at 11:30 am (GMT-4). Entitled "How Automation Plays a Key Part in Accelerating Drug Delivery Approval" the webinar will present:

Speakers for the first webinar will be Craig Lipset, Former Head of Clinical Innovation Pfizer, Hugh Donovan, Former EVP Clinical Research Services Parexel, Yael Gozin, Head Nonclinical Reg. Writing & Submissions, Takeda Yoran Bar, CEO of Beaconcure and Illan Carmeli CPO at Beaconcure.

Attendees can register at: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_EB3WbQU1R066m14rS6wbZg.

About Beaconcure

Beaconcure developed an ML/NLP-driven analytics platform that is designed to support the life science industry in validating the content of clinical trials. With their technology, Beaconcure helps pharmaceutical companies and CROs to significantly improve the quality of their outputs (clinical reports, safety analysis etc.) by identifying programming issues, specification deficiencies, and data inconsistencies.

With their first-of-its kind solution, the algorithms convert various clinical data formats in any layout into a semantic and dynamic database, to which any required segmentation rule, crosscheck and analysis can be applied. All defined errors and anomalies are identified, with 99.7% accuracy, in a matter of hours, drastically reducing clinical data processing timelines and increasing the quality of the output.

Learn more about Beaconcure solution at https://beaconcure.com.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1633903/Beaconcure_Logo.jpg

Beaconcure contact: Orit Veinerman VP Marketing [emailprotected]

SOURCE Beaconcure

https://beaconcure.com

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Beaconcure Announces Webinar Series on How Automation Can Play a Key Part in Accelerating Drug Approval - PRNewswire

As organisations navigate the aftermath of the pandemic, the retail sector is still struggling to secure future profitability and is facing a range of new challenges

While the so-called pingdemic may be over, continued staff shortages due to Covid and high turnover as employees seek new careers have exacerbated post-Brexit recruitment problems. At the same time, back-office complications have multiplied in relation to finance, accounting, invoices, suppliers and payroll, creating backlogs, high workloads and inefficiencies within retailers existing admin-heavy processes.

With efficient back-office functions having always been crucial to minimising retail store disruption, now is the time for retailers to rethink their current processes and look at how they can achieve greater efficiencies in the back-office. A fundamental part of this will be shifting from traditional manual operations to an automated, outsourced back-office approach, with benefits likely to be felt across the entire organisation.

Automating for accuracy

Faced with a depleted workforce and ongoing uncertainty, back-office retail workers are being placed under significant pressure to juggle a variety of essential administrative tasks. Not only is this detrimental to their wellbeing, but strained teams that are short on time and resources can also be prone to mistakes, such as duplicate payments. With research from theAccounts Payable Associationfinding that 63% of finance professionals had received duplicated invoices, of which 33% had actually paid them, it is clear that mistakes in this area can be costly.

The use of innovative, digitised solutions to automate and digitise processes will allow retailers to streamline many of these back-office administrative tasks, helping to take the pressure off employees and avoid expensive errors. In this scenario, technology can be used to identify duplicate payments and previously unidentified credits, to ensure that retailers dont miss out on recoverable funds.

Automating the bulk of this process will help to drastically reduce the burden in-house and enable employees to focus on validating and recovering funds. By reducing the time taken up by these tasks, employees will also have more time to concentrate on the bigger picture initiatives that often fall by the wayside during busy periods.

Supplementing in-house teams

Similarly, staff shortages are also causing a backlog of tasks, particularly in the accounts payable and accounts receivable functions. Again, this is where technology can help to automate and digitise tasks to allow retailers to catch up. In addition to deploying technology, retailers may want to consider outsourcing to finance and accounting staff who can work as an extension of their in-house back-office function. This approach would allow retailers to outsource everything from invoicing to managing payroll, freeing managers from the administrative complexities these tasks often entail.

External teams can also complete supplier statement reconciliations on behalf of the retailer to improve cashflow and productivity. Adopting this method provides a more cost-effective option than employing temporary staff to fill the gaps. As well as assisting in clearing the backlog, it can also be an opportunity to get external insight into the current processes and solutions in use within the organisation. This will help retail management to identify the root cause of any issues they are experiencing and find practical ways to improve in order to prevent future issues and future-proof processes.

Supporting back-office employees

While the discussion around the retail sector tends to focus on the shop floor and those working within that environment, it is evident that those in the back office are also coming under immense pressure. With the effects of the pandemic and Brexit still being felt hard by retailers and their employees across the country, retailers must begin to address the issue of easing the burden being placed on back-office employees.

Vital to this will be working with partners and deploying solutions that help to automate and digitise everyday back-office and administration tasks to gain access to tech-driven efficiency they would otherwise find unattainable. In taking this approach, retailers will be able to better navigate administrative complexities, overcome issues arising around staff shortages and increase accuracy, while employees will be able to focus on more value-adding and bigger picture tasks. Ultimately, in time, this will help to improve the wellbeing and satisfaction of those working in the back-office, equate to significant cost-savings and set retailers up to increase sales.

About the Author

Mark Turner is Managing Director of Business Processes at Liberata. Liberata is a supplier of services and software to public and private sector organisations across the UK delivering cost savings and efficiency improvements across Revenues & Benefits; Finance & Accounting; HR & Payroll and Customer Services. As a trusted, reliable, operating partner, Liberata helps organisations deliver, run and automate complex services for individuals, businesses and other organisations.

Featured image: Eisenhans

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Empowering the retail back-office with automation - TechNative

As part of the keynote presentation at the 2021 virtual Ignition Community Conference, Don Pearson, vice president of sales and marketing at Inductive Automation, explained how the companys Ignition platform can help companies address the opportunities presented by IT/OT (operations technology) convergence, Internet of Things, smart manufacturing, and digital transformation trends.

If you take the Ignition platform and plop it right in the middle of all these challenges in the enterprise, you have an industrial automation platform that can connect the entire enterprise, he said. I don't care if youre talking about thousands of PLCs and RTUs and tags across an enterprise spread across the entire globethe ability to have a platform that can bring the entire enterprise together from the center to the cloud and back again and give you the feedback loop, the dashboards, the data, and the real time and historical analysis you needthat is hugely powerful and it's vital to a successful digital transformation.

Like any technology company positioning itself to address these evolutionary trends in industry, Inductive Automation does not contend that its software alone can address every aspect of the digital transformation. As such, the company frequently highlights its work with technology partners. Partner sessions at this years Ignition Community Conference event included:

Excerpt from:

How the Ignition Partner Ecosystem Helps Deliver Digital Transformation - Automation World

Today, low code is all the rage, with the worldwide low-code development technologies market expected to reach $13.8 billion this year, according to Gartner. One major factor driving investment is hyper-automation, as organizations look to quickly identify and automate appropriate business and IT processes.

Its no surprise robotic process automation (RPA) and citizen automation and development platforms (CADP) are two of the technologies seeing jumps in revenue, pointing to the current interest in low-code automation.

More stakeholders within the organization can contribute to initiatives through low-code automation. But there are a lot of choices when it comes to platforms. Choosing the wrong one can actually impede progress rather than expedite it. A low-code automation platform thats "too simple" wont give IT teams the tools they need to work on more complicated workflows, while a system thats "too complex" will overwhelm nontechnical users.

When organizations take the time up front to find that "just right" solution, you unlock the true potential of low-code automation. Digital workflow transformation accelerates and hyperautomation becomes a reality. Its the "sweet spot" of low code.

Low-Code Automation Analysis: Whats 'Just Right' for Your Organization?

Identifying the right low-code automation solution requires a hard look at the players involved. If the platform doesnt check the boxes for everyone, you wont get the maximum benefit.

Company executives are always looking to drive efficiencies, improve the customer experience, reduce costs and ensure compliance. Automation can help achieve all of these goals, but low-code automation is even more enticing because it puts an end to the long development timelines in many IT departments.

Lets imagine the following scenario: Management starts a new initiative to improve the customers journey during their interaction with customer service. Customers often reach out via chat and then send follow-up emails and phone calls, with an average of five touch points before their issue is resolved. This lengthy process creates a negative customer experience and leads to complaints, lower revenue and declining customer loyalty.

Management sets a goal to reduce the average number of customer touch points from five to two and wants to use low-code to accomplish it. So, you have buy-in, but what about everyone else impacted by this selection? In order to make a wise decision, you need to understand the roles and needs of everyone who will use the low-code platform.

One of the first user personas to consider is business process owners. This non-technical user understands the process is being automated. They can put their in-depth knowledge of the problem to work in a low-code automation platform by leveraging components built by more technical individuals.

But the platform has to be easy to use. Drag-and-drop tools and mobile device support are some features this user group will typically find valuable. An intuitive interface lets them make minor adjustments to automation workflows, such as making sure the types of questions coming into call centers are addressed in the workflow.

Another user persona to consider is the citizen developer, a non-professional developer who has enough awareness of basic programming and business process management concepts to use IT-developed components to create robots, user interfaces and workflows. They work closely with business process owners to identify areas where automation workflows can be reused to accelerate automation.

In our customer touch point scenario, the business process owner can explain the different types of cases coming into customer service with a high number of touch points. The citizen developer can determine how best to reuse automations to speed up the project timeline.

And, of course, we cant forget about IT and development teams. They may be skeptical of low-code, worried that non-technical users may break a system or introduce security issues. Buy-in and support from this group is critical for long-term success. There are two users within this area to consider.

Professional developers create integrations, apply business rules and are responsible for security and governance. Theyre capable of writing code and need a platform that allows them to carry out more complex coding and automation tasks.

System administrators are responsible for the maintenance, configuration and operation of the low-code automation platform. Theyll also play a role in making the IT-developed components available to citizen developers. These users will look for features such as simple integration and native support for emerging technologies and modern, cloud-first architecture.

What Happens When You Find That Sweet Spot?

When the low-code automation platform meets the needs of business process owners, citizen developers, professional developers and system administrators, the results are impressive. A recent study asked automation decision makers what benefits they would expect to see if their automation platform was more user-friendly. The top responses were:

In other words, the right low-code platform empowers everyone in the organization to put their knowledge to work and accelerate automation and digital workflow transformation. With all stakeholders able to contribute, the burden on IT and development decreases, so they can focus on more complex programming needs without slowing down progress on simpler initiatives. Rapid, scalable automation becomes possible, and the business can easily adapt workflows as automation needs change.

As more organizations turn their attention to low-code automation, its important to remember how critical the decision-making process is. When you consider all of the relevant user personas and ensure the solution meets all users needs, everyone -- from IT to business line managers -- can work smarter and faster. Now you can find your "sweet spot" and work like tomorrow, today.

Image credit: Visual Generation / Shutterstock

Omid Aslani is Director of Commercial Product Management at Kofax

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How to find the 'sweet spot' with low-code automation - BetaNews