Category Archives: Automation

According to a Payoneer report, the Indian ecommerce sector is ranked 9th globally in cross-border growth, with the volume of online orders increasing by 36 percent in the last quarter of 2020.

None of that would have been possible without an efficient shipping system. While many small and medium ecommerce businesses take a simple approach of manually selecting delivery partners for each shipment, this isnt the only approach.

Most ecommerce companies are opting for shipping automation to streamline their supply chain to grow their business and keep customers happy.

This leads to greater productivity and enables an ecommerce company to process and ship more orders in less time.

From small to medium to large, all sizes of an ecommerce business can benefit from fully embracing automation.

To better understand the role of shipping automation, let's look at some common fulfilment challenges e-commerce businesses deal with daily and how automation can solve those.

Delays in shipment are inevitable, and the reason for these delays could be anything depending on the nature, size, or weight of the product.

However, for ecommerce firms, it means customer escalations and WISMO calls leading to more time spent and money lost.

These losses can be mitigated with an organised fulfilment process and ongoing customer communication. Technology can reduce the impact of delayed shipments on customer experience by 60 percent.

These are cases where the carrier is unable to deliver the order. Sometimes, the receiver is not available at the address to receive the parcel, or the delivery address was incorrect/incomplete or missing some details.

An unsuccessful delivery incurs extra costs on rescheduling, informing the receiver, and scheduling the future delivery. Automating the delivery operations by integrating with carriers helps identify such cases in real-time and taking customer inputs proactively. This increases the success rate of such delivery attempts.

Fake delivery attempts adversely impact customer experience. For an ecommerce company, it is important to empower customers to report such cases directly and solve the issues.

Also, NDR (non-delivery report) management in automated processes reduces the time spent processing the undelivered parcel. It also follows up with the customer to check their availability to receive the package and perform the re-attempts.

Stuck shipments are a complex situation for any ecommerce company. These shipments, which are 'stuck' in the supply chain, have a strong chance of getting delayed, causing severe disruption to the customers buying experience.

This can be damaging to your reputation, incurring extra costs and lost revenue. An automated system gets tracking updates from carriers, and when there is no update regarding the shipment for more than three days, it auto-flags the order and enables daily emails to carrier POCs asking them to address stuck shipments.

Often, a package gets misplaced or damaged during shipments. Such incidents directly affect customer satisfaction but are out of the sellers control.

An automated system always keeps an eye on the status of the products through carrier updates over APIs.

The system then triggers an update in the sellers' order management system to resend the product.

Exceptions are common in ecommerce supply chains, but automation is a great way to mitigate the risks associated with such exceptions.

Automation saves time, reduces costs, improves efficiency, productivity and accuracy, and results in better customer experiences. It benefits both the ecommerce company and the customers and ensures business growth.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

More:

Here are 5 shipping exceptions that ecommerce companies should automate - YourStory

Agility and responsiveness are key demands from the digital consumer. Whether in the consumer or commercial sector, a customer experience that is fast, efficient and effective is always the goal. Increasingly, digital-first insurtechs are able to deliver this experience leaving legacy carriers wondering how they can overcome years of systems and process toquite literallybring themselves up to speed.

Charlie Newark-French, chief operating officer at Hyperscience, will be partnering with Sam Love, chief product officer of wefox, at this years Underwriting Innovation Europe virtual event, brought to you by Intelligent Insurer. During their presentation on June 29, they will be revealing through the wefox case study how legacy carriers can replicate the success of their digital transformation by intelligently automating manual processes such as data extraction and verification. Here, Newark-French explains what viewers can expect.

Put the customer at the heart of your plans when building your business process. Charlie Newark-French, Hyperscience

Why is this case study such an important example of the power of automation? Wefox is trying to do something unique in Europe: to be the first Europe-wide, fully digital insurance company while still embracing the incumbent broker network. It is looking for substantially better outcomes for customers. This means improving processes and underwriting policies significantly more quicklyand doing so at a lower cost.

Its unique in that, in the face of digital, many carriers might try to circumvent the broker network, but wefox feels that this service has many advantages. It gives instant scale to startups or new market entrants where otherwise you might need a large marketing budget and extensive time investment to build a similar base.

Distribution makes a big difference. The broker gets close to the customer, understands their needs and can help with more than one product. Intelligent automation enables brokers to underwrite policies for their customers much faster, and this seamless experience for the broker filters down to the end customer.

By improving its business process, wefox has enabled its brokers to provide a much better customer experience, and that helps them expand the broker network.

What lessons can be learned from this case study?Speed and cost savings directly impact not only your customers, but also your brokers. Its a miserable process: taking out an insurance policy, submitting information and then waiting for days and more to get an answer. We know theres a better way.

What contribution is automation making to end customer experience?Powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, the Hyperscience Platform automatically classifies and extracts accurate, actionable data from the diverse document types required throughout the underwriting process.

This throughput increase not only enables cost savings, it translates downstream to the customers, improving their overall interaction with wefox as their time spent waiting for answers is reduced. In utilising intelligent automation through its insurance processes, wefox is able to compete with other providers by issuing policy decisions faster, allowing the brokers to provide a seamless customer experience.

On top of that, further down the chain, intelligent automation is freeing wefox employees from the time-consuming, manual task of comparing documents against the information entered by brokers, and enabling them to use that reclaimed time better by providing customers with better services. Its a win-win for all involved thanks to the power and flexibility of intelligent automation.

What best practices will attendees be able to take away from the session?First of all, its thinking about where we are and where were trying to get to, plus value to stakeholders and value to the customer. Wefox has looked at the world of today, designed the world where it wants to exist, and then charted a path between the two.

The company has been thoughtful of its employees needslooking for ways to free them to work on more impactful work, rather than keying someones name into a system four times over.

It has considered the mundane tasks that a machine can accomplish, while leaving the more meaningful work to employeesenabling a collaboration between machines and humans that future-proofs the organisation in its efficiency and configurability.

With customers at the centre of the digital transformation, wefox has improved the experience of its employees, brokers and customers.

What else should attendees take away from this session? Put the customer at the heart of your plans when building your business process. Think about ways to upgrade using technology that augments what your employees are able to accomplish, enabling the whole organisation to embrace change.

What I found fascinating is that pre-COVID-19, organisations were reluctant to implement change management. Yet at the start of the pandemic, change happened on a massive scale in a matter of weeks. When it comes to future-proofing your organisation for the benefit of your customers, sometimes its best just to tear off the Band-Aid and make the change.

Charlie Newark-French, chief operating officer at Hyperscience, and Sam Love, chief product officer of wefox, will be speaking on Tuesday June 29 at Intelligent Insurers Underwriting Innovation Europe Virtual Event (June 2830, 2021). The event is free to attend for insurers and brokers/agents, but you must register in advance. Sign up to access the content live and on demand here.

wefox, Hyperscience, Underwriting Innovation Europe, Virtual event, Insurance, Reinsurance, Charlie Newark-French, Sam Love, Europe

Read the rest here:

Outperform the competition through machine learning-powered automation - Intelligent Insurer

June 28, 2021The automation of 5G networks, including the use of artificial intelligence to keep up with updates, will be an essential component to the next-generation mobile wireless networks, according to experts.

Representatives from Verizon, Cisco Systems, and other telecom companies discussed the importance of automating 5G networks, and the role AI could play in the process, at a virtual 5G symposium held earlier this month.

The automation process involves creating equipment standards in the components that link devices to the network, the experts said. It would also standardize the way in which devices would link up, making the process of connecting new technologies to the network significantly faster, easier, and more streamlined. It would also eliminate much of the complexity currently inhibiting the networks, they added.

The implementation of 5G brings with it the promise of connecting more devices than ever before, including personal devices like laptops and tablets, autonomous vehicles, machinery, medical equipment, and homes and city buildings. Connecting these devices will allow them to collect and deliver data that will assist in research and innovation that some say will be revolutionary.

The vast number of connections in 5G networks creates complexities in the network configuration that poses a challenge for engineers and experts to overcome.

The primary challenge, the experts said, lies in managing the large number of devices including internet of things that are supposed to connect to the network. They argued that automation, through the use of artificial intelligence, can be the solution to many of the current problems facing network operators.

Automating this process is essential, said Ofer Farkash, products and solution marketing director at Amdocs, who added that automation is a key aspect of the 5G networks and is absolutely essential in order for service providers to manage, deploy, and operate the highly complex 5G networks.

Rick Fulwiler, the chief solution architect at Netscout, said AI and machine learning could be a crucial component in synchronizing the 5G network. He said he believes technology progresses too fast for humans to keep up with, and the AI could be the component that helps us keep up.

Fulwiler says that its really hard for people to understand this technology because its changing so quickly. And along with that, were seeing a kind of demise of domain knowledge.

Technicians have to be able to maintain 4G and LTE services, while also understand the developments taking place in the 5G sphere. According to Fulwiler, its too much.

Its almost as if were driving a car down the road and were trying to change all the wheels at once, he said.

Because its so difficult to streamline the vast number of differing connected devices, there exists a seemingly endless array in which errors can accrue and mishaps to the network take place, the conference heard. It would be difficult for humans alone to identify and fix every single one.

Meanwhile, AI can monitor the network, identify errors, and possibly even offer a solution long before a human ever could, the experts said.

Read the original post:

Network Automation is Key to 5G's Future, Experts Say - BroadbandBreakfast.com

By now, even the least tech-savvy among us have heard of artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotic process automation (RPA).

These types of tools drive a certain amount of fear and uncertainty among employees who worry their jobs may someday be replaced by robots. But that technology, specifically RPA, can hold great promise for the workforce.

Pandemic Drives a Move Toward Increased Automation

RPA has increased in popularity as the COVID-19 pandemic stressed the need for efficiency and process optimization, said Emily Rose McRae, senior director of the Gartner HR practice. She pointed to results of a 2020 Gartner COVID-19 Quick Poll, in which 24 percent of senior finance leaders reported that they planned to increase their investments in RPA, workflow automation and optimization technologies as a result of the pandemic. Another 68 percent said they were planning to maintain their current investment levels.

"As organizations begin to enter post-pandemic recovery and seek to reopen worksites, emerging technologies will continue to play a vital role in supporting new ways of working," McRae said.

But like any tech solution, RPA isn't a silver bullet and may not be right for every organization. The flip side of this is also true: Every organization may not be right, or ready, for RPA.

Here we use a simple SWOTstrengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threatsanalysis to determine how RPA might have the potential to hold a perfect place within your HR operations.

Potential Strengths

The obvious big benefit of RPA is that it completes administrative tasks so people can focus on more high-level areas of impact.

"Technology, such as robotic process automation, works best when it enhances human ability, freeing up time for people to focus on tasks that require critical thinking, judgment and empathyas opposed to simple, transactional work," said Manish Sharma, group CEO of Accenture Operations, where he leads a team of more than 145,000 professionals worldwide.

Sharma notes that Accenture research has found that "HR leaders from the most digitally mature organizations recognize that automation is about maximizing talent in an era when people are most crucial to its success."

Potential Weaknesses

However, RPA may not always provide the benefits hoped for.

Sharma points to "lack of leadership sponsorship, siloed behavior and talent gaps" as reasons automation may falter. Importantly, RPAin truth, any technology solutionis not something that just "automatically" works. Just because you have a tool in place doesn't mean it will be used or used effectively.

The HR leaders Accenture surveyed indicated that more reskilling needs to be done to ensure tools are being used most appropriately and effectively. And not just reskilling related to the tech tools.

"The end value of an automated operation typically touches multiple processes, so you need inter-functionality across departments," Sharma noted. For example, he says, "a CFO and a CHRO cannot change their function if the CIO is not on board." Overcoming potential weaknesses with RPA, he said, "is all about collaboration of people, process and technologyall coming together."

There are other inherent weaknesses in some organizations that could impact the ability to effectively institute RPA.

For instance, McRae pointed to "increasing demand for digital dexterity and social-creative skills." This is important as employees begin "working alongside automation tools and managing the output of RPA-enabled processes." HR leaders, she said, should be considering "the most effective ways to enhance digital dexterity and build social-creative skills where RPA is used."

Another potential weakness could be managers unprepared to manage the transition to RPA. Managers "will face new challenges in measuring employee productivity, maintaining a positive culture and communicating with teams regarding the benefits and challenges that may come with continued automation," McRae said. It's important, she added, for HR to support managers, not just employees, through these changes.

Potential Opportunities

The pandemic has pointed to one critical opportunity of RPA for HR organizations:the ability to remain productive despite staffing shortages and a dispersed workforce.

"Automation is especially valuable in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic we are still facing today," Sharma said. "In fact, 70 percent of the HR leaders we surveyed say automation is broadly being used today."

As we emerge from the pandemic, Sharma said, HR leaders are becoming architects of a "new, blended, human-plus-machine workforce." This requires HR to "match the best human talent with the technology they need to excel," he said.

"Future-ready HR executives have learned quickly that automation will be an enabler of unparalleled advances in employee productivity and engagement," Sharma said.

Fred Hencke, senior vice president at Segal, an HR and employee benefits consulting firm in New York City, said RPA can have a positive impact on cost, quality and scalabilitywhen it is focused properly, operates error-free and does not produce a large number of exceptions to be handled manually. To best leverage these potential opportunities, he recommended first piloting RPA use before instituting it broadly.

"Looking ahead, Gartner research reveals 82 percent of organizations will involve heads of HR in return-to-work decisions, so it is crucial that HR leaders are familiar with the technologies that will enable the post-pandemic world of work and lead the organization in planning for the impact they will have on the workforce," McRae said.

That's certainly an opportunity. It can also prove to be a threat, though, if other foundational business practices aren't in place.

Potential Threats

Be prepared for negative backlash from employees concerned about being "replaced by robots." There is growing evidence that automation won't steal jobs but instead willmake them better.

"The term 'robot' strikes fear into the hearts of many people in the operating and functional areas of HR who are scared of being replaced by robots," Hencke said. Business leaders and HR, though, he added, "can ease concerns by consistently communicating that RPA, AI and machine learning are designed to replace repetitive tasks and provide real-time actionable insights, to free up people to focus on higher value-added tasks like interpretation, trend analysis and getting out ahead of the customer."

Perhaps a more likely threat is failing to adequately prepare employees to effectively leverage technologies like RPA. In many cases, that will require upskilling; it may require bringing new talent on board. It may require new types of partnerships and collaborations internally and externally.

HR leaders need to understand how important it is to equip people with the skills they need to effectively leverage RPA, Sharma said. They need to ensure that the talent profile evolves to meet changing organizational needs, he added. "After all, technology shines the brightest when it augments human ability."

Lin Grensing-Pophal is a freelance writer in Chippewa Falls, Wis.

Original post:

Analyzing the Pros and Cons of Robotic Process Automation - SHRM

IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation is designed to help communications service providers improve networking and deliver new services in days, rather than months

ARMONK, N.Y., June 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --At Mobile World Congress 2021, IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced new hybrid cloud AI-powered automation software for communications service providers (CSPs) to help deliver on the promise of 5G, including zero-touch operations, reduced costs and the rapid delivery of innovative services to customers. Using IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation,CSPs can use AI-powered automation to stand up and manage networks quickly, in a wide range of environments, and is engineered to scale new services in days, rather than months.

CSPs provide a vital lifeline for citizens and enterprises globally, and even more so today, as unpredictable events can drive massive changes in network needs and traffic patterns. In fact, according to an IBM Institute for Business Value study, 82% of leading CSPs surveyed identified faster time-to-market of new services as the most important element for successful automation initiatives1.

"As the telco industry races to capture new value from 5G and Edge computing, many are transforming their networks to software-defined platforms that can deliver on this promise. Yet our customers have identified that limited automation and the lack of real- time visibility across networks have hindered their ability to deliver innovative services to customers fast enough," said Andrew Coward, General Manager, Software Defined Networking, IBM. "To help address these growing demands, IBM's new Cloud Pak for Network Automation software uses AI-powered automation to enable zero-touch provisioning of new services which can facilitate the simplification of the management of network functions from the core to the edge."

IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation, which is engineered to run in a wide range of environments on Red Hat OpenShift, provides a full suite of AI-powered automation capabilities to implement 5G and edge services by managing multi-vendor software-based network functions, which supports the evolution to autonomous operations. The software brings together advanced analytics, machine learning and AIOps to help CSPs discover hidden patterns and trends in networking data, so they can continually optimize network operations and performance with minimal human intervention. With the integration of IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps and edge solutions including IBM Edge Application Manager, CSPs can automate the delivery of resources where they are needed dynamically.

With the addition of IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation to the IBM Cloud Pak portfolio, CSPs can benefit in the following ways:

IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation is designed so that a network engineer could use it to turn up a site in a matter of 4-5 days. The solution enables hundreds of thousands of network functions, including hostname details, server ports, network architecture, tenants, IP address plans and more, to be organized and brought together (i.e.: "orchestrated") in real-time to deliver a holistic network service.

With the recent close of the acquisition of Turbonomic, IBM plans to deliver the needed analytics and monitoring capabilities required of virtualized, automated networks. IBM plans to offer IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation with Turbonomic network performance management and assurance. Turbonomic provides the ability to ingest large amounts of telemetry information and provide insight into performance and services to manage day-to-day operations. Through this planned integration, customers will have access to network recommendations from analytics, which will become dynamic actions within the network.

IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation is one of the IBM Automation Cloud Paks that include a set of shared automation services supported by more than 30 ecosystem partners that helps professionals self-automate routine tasks so they can focus on high-value work. Today's announcement follows IBM's recent launch of IBM Watson Orchestrate to provide AI-powered automation to business professionals, and the acquisitions of Turbonomic, myInvenio, Instana and WDG Automation to build out a complete end-to-end AI-powered automation portfolio of software for transforming business processes and IT operations.

IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation is built on Red Hat OpenShift, can run in a wide range of environments including hybrid multi-cloud and multi-vendor, and can manage divergent networking vendor infrastructures, including edge networks. IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation is available now. For more information, please visit https://www.ibm.com/cloud/cloud-pak-for-network-automation

Media Contact

Tyler Allen

IBM Media Relations

tballen@us.ibm.com

1 IBM Institute for Business Value "Re-envisioning the CSP network" report

https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/73NVRNRY

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/95470/ibm_logo.jpg

Read the original post:

IBM Brings AI-Powered Automation Software to Networking to Help Simplify Broad Adoption of 5G - KPVI News 6

The explosive growth of online and mobile shopping has seen supply chains being squeezed under the mounting strains, explaining why automation is experiencing record amounts of demand in recent months.

The intention to automate supply chain links in the warehousing, logistics and e-commerce sectors has been present even before the pandemic took hold last year, but the subsequent challenges the fulfillment space faced were extremely high profile.

More than ever post-COVID-19, consumers turned to e-commerce and mobile channels to procure goods, placing tremendous pressure on warehouses to deliver which automation can help ease a reality that supply chain managers are all too aware of, with the 2021 MHI Annual Industry Report making clear that almost half of logistics decision-makers have sped up their spending outlook on automation technologies like autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) as a result of factors like the pandemic.

Mobile automation solutions like AMRs represent a handful of productivity and efficiency benefits that can safeguard the competitive posture of suppliers and warehousers beyond the major supply chain disruptions that had been felt in the market since last year.

Lawnmower-sized robots move around shelving units in Amazons Fulfillment Center. (Photo by Grant HINDSLEY / AFP)

For instance, the coronavirus greatly highlighted the need for regular and stringent health and safety precautions, from the front office to the warehouse to the fulfillment hub. Businesses can avoid questions of safety concerns if they integrate automated methods like robotic conveyor systems which can ensure contactless handling and distribution of materials.

In the same vein of productivity and safety, mobile automation will not tire, feel overworked, or fall ill if they are required to work overtime to meet production or fulfillment deadlines. Not only can tools like AMRs perform the oft-repetitive and mundane tasks at a distribution hub, but they could do it round the clock if needed complementing human labor whenever needed, and freeing human workers to be performing more attention-intensive tasks, better.

And its not just mundane tasks, more and more AMRs are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and the power of

data insights to optimize key business decisions, such as fleet management. By relying on data analytics firms can study patterns and past distribution schedules to optimize things like delivery routes, distribution mechanisms, and learn from the performance of past business flow techniques.

With better decision-making, supply chain operators can improve existing processes, while using data to help reduce costs, manage risks, and drive new efficiencies. And with the prevalence of reliable mobile automation tech within the warehousing sector of late, there is bound to be a versatile solution that can help smaller distribution hubs and micro e-commerce operators deliver on their fulfillment needs.

Visit link:

Mobile automation tasked to alleviate supply chain pressures - TechHQ

If Defense Department IT managers had their wish, they would want their networks to be better in four ways:

Network automation is designed to accomplish all that, and give analysts more control over and visibility into network resources. In this Q&A with Rich Lucente, principal DoD architect for Red Hat, we discuss how automation improves infrastructure availability, staff productivity, network security, and configuration compliance.

Breaking Defense: Why do organizations need to adopt automation?

Rich Lucente, Principal DoD Architect for Red Hat.

Lucente: The DoD and industry are under massive pressure to deliver services more quickly and securely. At the same time, IT is often viewed as both a roadblock and cost center. I would argue that it is neither when automation is adopted as a key supporting technology in digital transformation. It removes common roadblocks and reduces costs by: improving worker job satisfaction by automating mundane, repetitive tasks; improving efficiency; and reducing error rate by automating tasks and workflows.

And instead of IT being a cost center, resources are freed to implement impactful change. Automation enables organizations to digitally transform network operations and security while empowering them to develop better services and capabilities for end users.

Breaking Defense: What prevents organizations from adopting transformative automation?

Lucente: I would name five. First is misalignment between leadership and implementers. Managers must succinctly describe the reasons behind their path to automation, explain how it directly relates to each person, and set clearly defined and measurable tasks and goals. Leaders must also dedicate an appropriate amount of resources, both people and finances, so implementers can see that leadership fully supports the initiative.

Second is mismatched automation priorities. One-quarter of all implementers say they experience misalignment with leadership when it comes to setting automation priorities, determining which open source automation to use, or deciding the level to which infrastructure automation tasks are automated. This was highlighted in a Forrester Consulting thought leadership paper commissioned by Red Hat entitled, Enterprise open source automation drives innovation, July 2020.

Given the critical benefits that automation can bring to an organization, there is an urgent need to close this gap between the C-suite and implementers.

Third is indecision on choice of tool. Organizations can pare down the number of vendors to choose from by considering only those that provide complete support for their solution, offer vendor interoperability, provide simple adoption while offering massive scalability, feature agentless deployment to avoid use of proprietary systems, and support a vibrant ecosystem of partner content.

Uncertainty in the level of automation required is fourth.

Prior failed or unsatisfactory vendor proprietary automation implementations is the fifth factor. Too many vendors offer proprietary automation products that are limited in scope and only automate the product that vendor produces. Vendor proprietary automation forces administrators to become experts on myriad different automation tools, one per product, with different languages, syntax, and execution behaviors for each.

Alternatively, general-use automation like that provided by Ansible Automation Platform permits automation of anything, starting with a command line interface. Ansible also provides an enterprise framework for building and operating IT automation at scale. Users can centralize and control their infrastructure with a visual dashboard, role-based access control, and automation tools including analytics and certified, reusable content.

Ansible Automation Platform allows flexibility with your resources by automating provisioning for cloud providers, storage solutions, and infrastructure components. It helps make network management more consistent and expedites security patching and remediation.

Breaking Defense: What defines successful automation?

Lucente: Improved efficiency, lower costs, and faster delivery of services to begin with. That means a stronger security posture with repeatable processes and lower error rate. Successful projects always standardize the automation solution rather than attempt the job with a siloed, piecemeal approach.They also gain the ability to apply human resources across the organization as needed.

Easier acquisition of talent for popular well-known products is another way to define successful automation.

Breaking Defense: What are best practices for successful automation rollout?

Lucente: For leaders, be a champion! Set the vision with a mindset to support the team and push through roadblocks. Empower teams to embrace and own the solution.

Make sure to align to a business objective and measure success. If you dont measure it, you dont really care about it. Prioritize implementation within the organization and focus on outcomes rather than outputs. The DoD and other organizations dont care about the technology, per se, they care about the outcomes that improve mission execution.

Attach KPIs to your automation project, showing that this isnt just a new technology but one that is prioritized. If the metrics you outline are meaningful and realistic, youll prove your projects success beyond implementation.

Ive mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. Support change and collaboration. Automation doesnt eliminate employees, it frees them from repetitive, mundane tasks and enables them to focus on strategic initiatives that add value.

However, this reality might not be immediately apparent. Recognize and address employee anxiety and concerns. Focus on the benefits theyll experience, including improved cross- enterprise collaboration to move projects forward faster.

Encourage adoption by investing in people; required skill sets, via training and temporary consultancy, enable early success and long-term change. As with the implementation of any technology, if people dont know how to use automation, it wont work. Making sure your workforce is trained and using the technology in the right way is critical to successful adoption.

Lastly, find a middle ground by aligning priorities between implementers and leadership. Then choose an automation platform that is neither proprietary nor domain-specific so that you can automate across all levels of your infrastructure.

Breaking Defense: What should organizations look for in an automation solution?

Lucente: I suggest these three things. Number One, invest in a platform, not a domain-specific tool. Avoid a solution that locks you in to specific IT infrastructure. Platforms are easier to adopt, support portable workloads, and can scale. The platform should provide a broad ecosystem of IT vendor support so that many common tasks are already defined and readily reusable.

Number Two, make sure the platform has management tooling that gives you visibility into workflows, credential and access management, reporting, and other important areas of situational awareness.

Number Three, select a vendor with comprehensive training, support, and consulting services.

Here is the original post:

Best Practices For Network Automation - Breaking Defense Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary - Breaking Defense

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) has created a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology Strategy Board of leading AI experts, part of a major initiative to promote education and adoption of the applications of artificial intelligence in automation industries.

This new board places AI leadership at the same level as A3s existing technology groups: robotics, vision & imaging, and motion control & motors. The AI Technology Strategy Board will be comprised of senior executives from leading AI and technology companies. This is the first time the global trade association has added a technology group to its leadership since adding motion control in 2006. A3 represents 1,100 companies from across the automation industry.

Artificial intelligence is layering atop robotics, vision, motion control, and other automation technologies to create new solutions, great flexibility, and expanding opportunities. Big tech companiesonce focused more on phones than factory floorsnow view manufacturing, robotics and industrial automation as key segments of their business.

Artificial intelligencein many shapes and formswill be the stitching that weaves together a new age of industry, said Jeff Burnstein, president of A3. As the global trade group of the automation industry, we need to help prepare our members to seize this potential.

The creation of the technology strategy board is the culmination of a three-year effort to educate and inform automation leaders about the growing importance of artificial intelligence. The boards chairman is John Lizzi, Executive Leader-Robotics at GE Research, who has chaired and played a leading role in the A3s AI efforts to date. Companies such as Amazon, GE, Google, Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Siemens and others have helped guide A3s initiatives. Robert Huschka, A3s vice president of education strategies, will serve as the associations liaison to the new board.

Last fall, A3 hosted its first virtual AI conference, the AI & Smart Automation Conference, with more than 1,600 virtual registrants. Last year, A3 released the whitepaper, Intelligent Automation: 6 AI Applications That Are Changing Industry. Focused on real-world use cases for AI, the 20-page paper has become the most-read whitepaper in the history of the association. The associations new website, AUTOMATE.ORG, has devoted an entire section to artificial intelligence. A3 is also set to begin work on new industry-recognized certification programs on AI and autonomous systems.

AI technologies will play a central role at A3s two major trade shows in 2022, The Automate Show & Conference, June 6-9, in Detroit, Michigan, and The Vision Show, October 11-13, in Boston, Massachusetts.

About Association for Advancing Automation (A3)

The Association for Advancing Automation is the global advocate for the benefits of automating. A3 promotes automation technologies and ideas that transform the way business is done. For more information, visit https://www.automate.org/.

Read the original:

New Artificial Intelligence Strategy Board to Lead AI Initiatives for the Association for Advancing Automation - Business Wire

By Vijay Ramnathan.

Last year was a wake-up call for businesses trying to run back-office operations. While in the past many were able to do this manually, when the pandemic hit, it quickly became apparent that approach was untenable. Nowhere was the pain felt as strongly as in Accounts Payable (AP). Conducting business, paying suppliers and managing cash flow suddenly hinged upon having someone in accounting or finance available to go into the office to retrieve invoices, physically route them for approvals, pick up checks, prepare check runs, and get them to the CFO for a signature before mailing.

Accounting and finance professionals know firsthand that manual AP operations are problematic even in the best of times. In addition to the tasks above, there is a lot of manual data entry and workflow management required. The amount of time and cost inefficiencies, plus the errors associated simply dont add up to good business practices.

Unfortunately, until now, organizations havent given AP automation the attention it deserves. Only 10% of businesses have fully automated their AP process, and only 38% of SMBs have even partially automated it. Instead, businesses have prioritized automation initiatives for revenue-generating processes and workflows in areas such as sales, marketing, and product development. And even for those organizations that have pursued automation in areas such as AP, integration with financial systems and supplier acceptance have slowed adoption. With some accounting software, it can take a lot of time, effort and expense for companies to integrate their ERPs with multiple ePayment types. On top of that, many companies lack the time and resources to contact their suppliers to arrange different ePayment methods.

A business process ripe for automation

Despite some of these challenges, the business opportunity for AP automation is tremendous. North American B2B payments add up to $27 trillion a year. And, those payments cost businesses a lot of money; its estimated that companies spend $510 billion each year on direct/indirect manual AP costs for payments.

Consider whats involved: staff manually inputting data from hundreds of invoices each month especially in industries like healthcare where there can be lines and lines of medical devices, equipment and other supplies. Add in the time it takes to manually match invoices to POs, correct errors, and track people down for approvals. When you add it all up, the average cost for processing each invoice is nearly $11, and it can be as high as $25 or more. That adds up pretty quickly for a company processing tens or hundreds of thousands of invoices annually. But its not just invoices the same problem occurs on the payment sidemanual checking writing, payment processing, paper check costs, postage and more can cost an estimated $6 each. There are additional costs to consider as well as a result of late payment penalties and lost discounts.

On top of the cost, manual processes obscure visibility. Its more important than ever for companies to be able to see where their invoices and payments are in the process, as well as outstanding liabilities and available cash flow. Without this, companies wont have the agility to manage payment, cash flow and spend effectively all which are critical in todays business environment.

AP Automation is heating up as a key business benefit

There is a fundamental shift underway. Now that client-facing and front-office technologies have become well entrenched, CFOs are turning their focus to back-office automation, especially in AP, to gain efficiencies and reduce costs.

The good news is that technology is available today to enable companies to achieve these goals. Modern AP automation solutions make it easy for accounting firms and their clients to take advantage of automation, without the obstacles of the past. These solutions eliminate the traditional roadblocks by providing easy integrations and simplified workflow along with key services such as supplier network engagement, and comprehensive managed services.

At the same time, accountants, CFOs and other business leaders are recognizing the value AP automation can deliver for companies of all sizes. It has enabled them to reduce AP-related costs by more than 75% and achieve ROI within 3-4 months. Companies can also make money by using virtual cards that offer cash rebates.

By having greater control over payments and paying on time, companies also have been able to improve supplier relations. The enhanced visibility and control that AP automation delivers also reduces the threat of financial fraud, and enables accountants and finance teams to make more informed business decisions based on timely, accurate information on outstanding liabilities, spend and cash flow. Adoption of AP automation is poised for rapid growth over the next two years, as it enables companies to create financially savvy, agile finance departments ready to move their businesses forward and take advantage of new opportunities.

Vijay Ramnathan is the president of MineralTree, a company specializing in AP and payment automation for middle-market and enterprise-level companies. A self-professed fintech and payments geek, Vijay has spent over 20 years in the space including strategic leadership and operational roles at companies including US Bank, Fifth Third Bank, and COMDATA/Fleetcor.

Here is the original post:

AP Automation is Taking Off in Small and Mid-Sized Businesses - CPAPracticeAdvisor.com

Iris Automation has been in our peripheral vision for a few years now. So we thought it would make sense to take a look at what the company does, as its products offer the ability for a drone to detect (and avoid) other crewed aircraft.

Iris Automation is all about air safety. Specifically, ensuring that a drone you might be operating can detect and avoid crewed aircraft. In a nutshell, thats what Iris Automation does, which is a very important thing as the industry evolves toward a future where Beyond Visual Line of Sight flights are the norm, rather than the exception.

Lets look at how the company does it.

Drones are often referred to as an eye in the sky. But drones are generally built to use those eyes (regardless of what type of sensor were talking about), to capture data on a mission. The eyes of a drone, with rare exceptions, are generally focussed on ground-based objects or assets. Theyre not looking around for other things in the sky.

Thats where Iris Automation comes in. It will do the looking around on your behalf. And, if it detects an aircraft that could pose a problem, take evasive action.

The company name is the first clue: Its Iris (as in your eye) Automation. The drone field is heading inexorably in the direction of automated, smart flights. And a fundamental component of the Iris system called Casia is intended to be part of the solution. Why? Because, as CEO Jon Damush puts it (and we agree), humans can be a weak link in the system.

In our briefing with Jon, he pointed out there are lots of pieces of the puzzle already out there, each making contributions toward Unmanned Traffic Management. For example, pilots file flight plans. There are flight path altitude separations depending on the direction the crewed aircraft is flying. There are tools like Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, or ADS-B (this is a transponder carried by many crewed aircraft that pings out ID and location information on a regular basis). Radar, too, can be part of the equation. But the weak link? Thats the human being.

The reason Im terrible (as a pilot), explains Damush, is because Ive got to do a lot of other things. My view of the sky is occluded. My efficacy as a human to be the primary detect and avoid (mechanism) is really poor.

But think what might happen if you could integrate an onboard camera and detection system, and connect it with the other pieces of the puzzle. You now have the capacity for completely automated aircraft control, says Damush.

A more appropriate term, given that the system involves cameras, machine vision and more, might be A-Eye. Thats because the system uses a camera (or multiple cameras in the 360 configuration) to watch the sky. CEO Damush says cameras were chosen because theyre light, relatively inexpensive, and are constantly sampling data.

An optical system is high rate 15 fps. Thats 15 samples per second, and thats a hard rate to match with other modalities, he says.

The Iris Automation home page outlines some of the key value propositions. Were going to borrow this straight from there:

Proven Detect and Avoid: Extensively tested with more than 16,000 real-world encounters and 50,000 encounters in simulation. Over 600 terabytes of flight data recorded.

Comprehensive Compatibility: Works with nearly all industrial drones and integrates with the most popular commercially available autopilot software.

Completely Onboard: Install once, fly forever with no ground-based infrastructure or visual observers required.

Well, there are two varieties. One involves a single camera connected with the Casia unit:

Or, if youre flying something bigger and are after 360 detection, youll be looking at a five- or six-camera system weighing about 2.2 kilograms (nearly five pounds). The lowest weight of the system, with a single camera, is 400 grams.

And what does that look like, mounted on a drone? Well, something like this, seen here integrated on a Saxon M14. Obviously, this is a system designed for larger drones and not units the recreational user or hobbyist is likely to be flying (unless youre a really serious hobbyist).

Youre probably starting to get the picture. The Casia system is constantly scanning the skies and trying to detect whats out there and if theres a potential conflict. Because it has AI and machine vision baked in, it can even identify whats out there. Is it a Piper? A Cessna? A helicopter?

As you can likely imagine, theres a lot of computing going on behind the scenes. The system has to know precisely where its cameras are in time and space, along with the speed and trajectory of the drone. Plus it has to identify whats out there, what it is, and where its headed.

And heres the real secret sauce: Because the system knows, for example, how big a Cessna is, it can also quickly calculate how far away it must be (given its known dimensions). Heres Jon Damush:

Once we have a candidate we run it through AI those classifiers determine if its a helicopter, a small plane, a large plane, a hot-air balloon, etc. Once we have that, we know the real-world size. And we can determine range.

Thats a lot of information to capture and process on the fly. And then what? Well, if it detects there is a potential conflict, it will automatically perform an evasive manoeuvre to get the drone in question out of harms way.

The default would be simply to send a command to descend. But thats not always the case; Damush explains that drone manufacturers sometimes have their own preferred avoidance moves:

The avoidance thing is a tricky one. Most of the manufacturers and operators want to take charge of the avoidance manoeuvre (such as) vertical vs horizontal. For this category, typically the descent manoeuvre is the best manoeuvre.

Obviously, a larger drone equipped with 360 vision is going to be far safer to deploy on a BVLOS flight than an operator relying solely on ADS-B signals or other pieces of the detection puzzle. But when you can start integrating this additional layer of safety, regulators are more likely to feel satisfied that theres significant risk mitigation. That means BVLOS approval is likely to come more easily for a UAS with the Casia system on-board (though the operator, of course, still has to prove they know what theyre doing).

In fact, Casia-equipped aircraft have received BVLOS approvals in five countries and counting, and the company has collaborated with regulators on 14 different BVLOS test programs.

The results?

We seek to achieve 100 per cent probability of detection, says Damush. Today were at 95 per cent probability of detection. You have a very good chance of detecting a collision threat from 1.2 kilometres away.

Well, these arent exact figures but a basic system with a single camera will set you back about $9,000. Theres an additional licensing fee per aircraft per month. And yes, there are customers who are flying these systems right now it hasnt all been testing.

One intriguing thing that popped up in the conversation: Could this system be ground-based, looking up in the sky for potential conflicts if your mission(s) dont involve flying far afield? This could be particularly useful if youre operating smaller drones that couldnt handle the weight of the Casia, or you had a fleet of different craft operating within a limited mission zone.

The answer is yes; Damush says Iris been running some tests for this use-case.

CEO Jon Damush points out the company is but five years old, and that these are still early days. But there are already 25 customers, and regulators appear to like what they see. As more regulators see the system in action, more BVLOS approvals will come. As for the weight, Iris Automation is already looking at ways to produce the same results, or better, in a lighter package.

And the bottom line? The system, says Damush, works.

Everybodys looking for a silver bullet. And for us? Were going to keep you from crashing into another airplane.

And you cant put a price on that.

Subscribe to DroneDJ on YouTube for exclusive videos

Go here to read the rest:

Iris Automation: A closer look at detect and avoid - DroneDJ