Category Archives: Automation

Thatcham Researchs Matthew Avery considers the role independent testers will play in fostering trust around automated vehicles

The evolution of automated vehicle technology is radically changing the game for independent safety testers, so too the rules of engagement. Testing organisations, working in close collaboration with carmakers, provide a crucial check and balance, and the safety assurance required to win consumer trust and drive the uptake of potentially life-saving systems.

Current testing is focused on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and assumes the driver is always alert and ready to take back control of the wheel when required. As soon as the driver is removed from the equation, testing needs to be much more scientific and evaluate potentially millions more real-world scenarios in which the vehicle will be entirely responsible.

It is imperative the testing community is ready for automated vehicles imminent arrival. At stake is the one thing that automakers need more than anything else: the trust of the motoring public. Trust that manufacturers have rigorously tested their safety systems. Trust in the data they make available. Trust that testing standards will drive systems that are robust and prevent crashes. And ultimately trust that the automated systems on their car will not put them in danger.

Virtual modelling is becoming increasingly sophisticated. This gives huge advantages in terms of car design, stress and safety testing, and huge cost-reductions in respect of the ability to test software and hardware virtually before production and fitment. It is also a useful tool from a research perspective. For example, during physical testing, Thatcham Researchs passive safety crash tests utilise ubiquitous crash-test dummies. They may look sophisticated but are in fact relatively crude.

They use generic rules about bio fidelity and injury tolerance levels and they are basic in terms of assessing the impact of crashes on different morphologiesold and young, male and female and so on. They have served the industry well over the past 50 years and have helped significantly reduce serious injuries and fatalities. However, their simplicity means automotive risks missing injuries and not protecting people that do not look and behave like crash dummies.

The solution to overcoming this challenge lies in virtual testing and has been enabled by huge developments in computing power. The virtual-test world replaces crash dummies with virtual models. These full-body models test the impact of forces on the human body, bones, muscles and organs, and accurately model how a human will interact and behave in the event of a crash.

Virtual tools are already proving their value to vehicle manufacturers for the design of new vehicles. But what about regulators and consumer testing bodies?

In the consumer testing arena, trust and independence are everything. Virtual safety tests need to be independently verified and assessed. Otherwise, how can motorists trust manufacturer models and their safety claims? Crash tests where safety is assessed during physical crashes accompanied by video evidenceare generally understood and trusted by the motoring public. This is not the case with virtual simulation, where consumers are effectively asked to put their trust in a computer.

Cultivating the trust of motorists in AV testing is crucial, both for testers and automakers

Then comes the problem of interpreting the data submitted by automakers. Consumer testing requires independent assessments using virtual machine (VM) data where the virtual vehicle models and coding are proprietary. Most VMs use dedicated computer networks for their virtual testing, and all are rightly concerned with protecting their valuable intellectual property. Manufacturers do not currently share these data models and if they did, they would be unreadable to the outside world.

Type Approval regulations do not currently compel manufacturers to share this modelling data or to supply it in a standardised format. With the complexities of active safety testing and especially automation, virtual testing is a prerequisite for measuring the performance of vehicles in myriad scenarios. This is something the UN is exploring through its VMAD framework, which addresses the use of virtual modelling to validate automated driving.

Thatcham Research sees potential in some form of technology interface, whereby manufacturers can upload the data needed to validate safety claims without revealing secrets about their intellectual property (IP). An agreed framework for input parameters and access to IP-free vehicle data would allow for more rigorous stress testing, engendering greater consumer confidence.

The eternal challenge for operators of vehicle safety test tracks is to recreate real-road authenticity in an artificial environment. This challenge becomes more complicated with the introduction of autonomous technology. Yet the current climate is one of uncertainty. In the absence of greater clarity from lawmakersand more first-hand experience with a broader range of autonomous systems as they begin to trickle into the marketplacetesters do not necessarily have the all the information needed to define clear strategies.

For example, testing organisations will increasingly need to give thought to how they accurately recreate motorway driving conditions. Do they construct replica motorways at their facilities? For urban tests, do they make a substantial investment in the construction of a realistic city-centre track? Or in both cases, can virtual simulation be employed to recreate these environments authentically? And if they go the virtual route, what will be the agreed testing parameters?

There certainly needs to be greater guidance on testing parameters to ensure a degree of uniformity the public can trust. For example, if we disable certain functionality to focus testing on individual systems, is this test holistically fair? How well can we simulate the presence of other traffic and the random factor this introduces without endangering lives on real roads? Above all, without a framework in place, how can we be sure all manufacturers and independent testers are working towards the same goals?

Automaker testing facilities are impressive, yet they too are wrestling with the technical challenges posed by autonomous vehicles (AVs). Moreover, it would be unhealthy for the industry to find itself in a position where manufacturers mark their own homework, essentially underwriting the safety of their AV tech.

The Thatcham Research view is that we already enjoy many of the safety benefits of automation through current assisted driving technology and motorists are relatively familiar with these driving systems. In the meantime, more collective work is needed on the virtual and physical testing environments to prepare them for AVs.

Cultivating the trust of motorists in AV testing is crucial, both for testers and automakers. In the same way that drivers trust consumer safety ratings from EuroNCAP and Thatcham Research today, we must put in place the building blocks of a trusted programme that meets the demands of automation tomorrow.

It would be unhealthy for the industry to find itself in a position where manufacturers mark their own homework, essentially underwriting the safety of their AV tech

If motorists do not see the benefits of AV technology in terms of road safety or read reports of AV-related accidents in the media, consumer trust and confidence will inevitably be eroded. Motorists may then turn their backs on the technology altogether. This way nobody gets to benefit from the safety advantages of an AV. The stakes are high and so we must get this right.

There are multiple stakeholders in the mix. Governments are keen to encourage AV rollout and the technology, alongside electrification, sits at the heart of all carmaker strategies. Yet this must be balanced against the interests of testing organisations, regulators and ultimately motorists. We must ensure that all those with a role to play are pulling in the same direction.

About the author: Matthew Avery is Director of Insurance Research at Thatcham Research

Read more here:

Trust in AV: are motorists ready to put their faith in automation? - Automotive World

A remote-first approach triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic didnt stop most DevOps teams in their tracks, but instead drew attention to one of their biggest strengths: their ability to collaborate effectively to get quality work delivered safely and quickly. However, for teams that had largely been operating in face-to-face environments, the challenges were significant and some still remain today.

As we entered a global state of lockdown in early 2020, organizations across the world found that they needed to respond to the situation by changing their ways of working and upgrading their online collaboration tools. As a consequence, teams not already remote-friendly were at a disadvantage when compared to early adopters that had mastered remote working practices prior to the pandemic and were forced to change quickly. Fast forward to today, and it seems like enabling effective collaboration without being in the same office space is somewhat a solved problem - at least for now.

As we gradually transition into a hybrid working world, it will become an active choice for organizations whether to maintain a culture of remote work or go back to business as usual. In this context, what should DevOps teams be focusing on in order to thrive when reaching this end post-pandemic destination?

In a remote world, most interactions take place over video conferencing and messaging platforms, and often in smaller groups than perhaps would have been assembled in a purely office-based environment.

This means that teams need to make a conscious effort to keep everyone in the team on the same page, as its easy for decisions to be lost in the ether. Teams must ensure not only that workflows transparently, but that direction and decisions are effectively communicated to everyone involved. DevOps is about joining these invisible dots and making them work together in a visible way with a little help from advanced toolings such as source code management, continuous integration, artifact storage, cloud orchestration or deployment.

However, the right tools and techniques must be supported by the right attitude, and trust in each team member. In this respect, in emerging from the pandemic it will be important for the C-suite and management to not only trust DevOps teams to make the right decisions, but to encourage a culture of open communication across the entire organization. Modern, agile and collaborative ways of working that extend individual teams and cut across the business need to be championed from the top, as well as from DevOps teams themselves. In turn, this empowers everyone with the autonomy to collaborate and get things done.

As DevOps teams expand in the post-Covid era, its important for organizations to make sure that theres structure behind bringing new staff on board, as sitting next to an incumbent and absorbing everything there is to know wont just happen naturally. Those joining DevOps teams will need to identify and build a full picture based on all the small pieces of knowledge across the organization, and be open, honest, and trustworthy in these interactions. More importantly, everyone new and old must keep communications channels open and actively share information that is critical for the team to know. Those who rise to this challenge and bring skills around communication will most certainly thrive.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can help us to automate some of the tasks that traditionally kept us busy, by giving us intelligent automated insights where previously we relied on human judgment. Spotting trends in operational data and adjusting course be it through server availability monitoring, or monitoring of user patterns in a web application, or anything in between takes time to get right. Similarly, to how successful DevOps processes tighten feedback loops, deploying AI and ML technology can facilitate better and faster decisions as a result of better judgments based on less human subjectivity. For collaboration, this also means an improved shared understanding of the numbers, all of which springboards DevOps teams into being able to act and collaborate even quicker.

These technologies enable better decision-making by teams through better data. By being able to predict performance and outcomes in a more precise way, based on scientific analysis of past performance, teams can make better-informed decisions on what to deploy.

Coming out of the pandemic we will see more teams using AI and ML to automate more business as usual work, freeing them up to add value.

One thing that will remain true in the post-pandemic era is that security cant be taken for granted. In todays digital and remote-first world everything is up for grabs, and the only way we can truly respond to it is by being proactive and assuming bad intent at every step if theres even a miniscule chance of a breach happening, it probably will.

The Covid-19 pandemic has seen a sharp rise in cyberattacks, and the smart approach is to fight them on multiple fronts. Its vital that we prevent a cascade of attacks resulting from a single component being breached this is where zero trust security becomes essential to daily operations. In this context, the main thing to remember is that nothing and nobody can be trusted which is an odd dichotomy considering the big tenant of agile DevOps being about increasing trust.

Shifting left with a DevSecOps approach, which involves building security into software and systems from the get-go, also ensures that teams make the best use of the people who know security best. Some of these threats will be imagined, but many will be very real and better processes must be put in place regardless of the organizations location whether it continues in a remote work environment or involves returning to a physical office space.

Effective DevOps teams know how to make sure everyone is on the same page and have historically excelled in situations that require filling in the communications gaps formed when groups of people make decisions without informing those who arent present. While many industry reports indicate high performance and successful approaches within the industry, many challenges have emerged that will become increasingly complex as we move into a hybrid working world.

In a world that is on the cusp of coming out the Covid-19 pandemic, DevOps teams can help resist a bounce-back to older and ineffective ways of working by re-emphasizing the drawbacks of the traditional 9 to 5 office work namely those of focus, energy, active meaningful collaboration, and delivering value rather than encouraging a culture of presenteeism. High-performing teams will need a wide degree of collaboration to be efficient, and DevOps teams are already at the center of this world.

In the months and years ahead, it will be highly unlikely that we see a wholesale return to a world where DevOps teams are gathered in the same physical space and decisions are made in the same room nor one where fully synchronous communication takes place. Despite this, those organizations that allow cross-functional teams to form unencumbered by traditional boundaries and time zones will be at an advantage. Theyll be able to quickly get the correct people together, communicate using modern tools, and get the job done. We must aim for a highly agile way of working, and those organizations and DevOps teams who are on board with this will thrive.

Matt Saunders, Head of DevOps, Adaptavist

Read this article:

Communication, automation and security how DevOps teams can thrive in the post-Covid era - ITProPortal

The combination of robotics and conveyors are making great strides when it comes to adding productivity and efficiencies to the packaging industry. The advent of smaller, agile collaborative robots, or cobots, which are designed to safely share a workspace with people, is opening up new applications within packaging, assembly, and other industries that previously didnt have any robotic interaction.

However, the equipment is just part of the equation people and the creativity to make those visions a reality is the other. As the packaging industry continues to evolve and embrace automation, it needs to be cognizant to invest in both technology and people to be successful moving forward.

Conveyors have become integral components within the packaging industry, thanks in large part to the successful integration of robotics. Thats because robotic manufacturers have gone to great lengths to remove a lot of the guess work, as well as the fear and unknown often associated with programing these systems. But the integration between robot and conveyor system is a much easier endeavor, too. This is helping to drive many traditional conveyor applications to consider adding robotics.

The process to streamline the conveyor/cobot integration begins with robotic manufacturers, some of whom have created their own software to make installation and programming fast and easy. For example, conveyors and related accessories can be controlled with robotic software plug-ins to aide in setup, configuration, and control. Once the program is installed, the conveyors can be added to the cobot control program, and the user is able to set the inputs and outputs needed for starting, stopping, speed preference, and monitor status information. This integration acts as a handshake between the conveyor and cobot, where an operator can run multiple conveyors off the controller at one time; as well as observe overall line performance.

This is a great example of how robotics and conveyors are working together to help change packaging. But robotics cannot do it alone it takes people to make it happen.

The packaging industry has done a good job in recent years of promoting itself to younger people as a strong, vibrant career field to enter. Packaging majors based on STEM curriculum are now offered in more than 20 colleges and university across the country. Many companies have established direct pipelines to these schools as a way to fill open positions for graduates. The promise of a good-paying job in a dynamic industry that allows people to flex their creative engineering strengths is a great recruiting tool. The industry as a whole has made terrific strides, but its imperative we dont let off the gas now.

We need to continue building interest in packaging and raise more awareness to the career opportunities this high-tech industry has to offer. People who work in packaging know firsthand that this industry is a destination career with great prospects for advancement, but do young people know that?

We need to shout this with a megaphone and attract the best and brightest because they will be rewarded. By investing in both technology and people, the industry will be in good hands.

More:

Packaging Productivity Depends on Automation and | packagingdigest.com - Packaging Digest

The U.S. has traditionally been a nation of optimists about technology. But just when the world seems poised for a technologically-driven productivity boom, Americans have acquired a dour outlook about the march of progress. Growing fears that not everyone will share in the benefits is leading to resistance that threatens to hold the nation back. Recapturing the bold attitudes of yesteryear will require more than rhetoric itll require sweeping policy changes.

Youd think now would be the time for Americans to come together in shared adulation of technology. After all, innovative mRNA vaccines arein the process of saving the nation from the greatest pandemic in a century and freeing people to resume normal lives. In the future, the same techniques may be used to defeat cancer. Meanwhile, an explosion of innovation in solar power and batteries is promising to drastically reduce the costs of averting climate change; 10 years down the line, itll be furnishing the country with energy so cheap that it could spark a new productivity boom. And remote work technologies are allowing many people to live far more flexible lives. Other emerging technologies like lab-grown meat, artificial intelligence, Crispr and synthetic biology hold out promises of even greater wonders in the near future.

Many Americans are still techno-optimists in some ways. Technology is the factor cited most as having improved life over the last half century. But in recent years, it seems like this optimism has been gradually eroded, replaced in part by skepticism and fear.

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Instead of the nation celebrating the conquest of Covid-19, as we did with the polio vaccine decades ago, Americans turned the vaccine into a culture war and many people refused to get inoculated. Amazon.com and Google are still generally liked, but their approval rating has taken a huge divedespite the fact that they helped most Americans make it through the pandemic. The pessimism is even evident in the art world: few artists bother to spin positive futuristic visions the way they did in the 1950s.

But the technology Americans fear above all others is A.I. Most perceive automation not as a way to increase efficiency or create higher-paying jobs, but rather as accelerating inequality. Prominent politicians like former New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio have called for taxes on robots, and even Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates joined in.

This techno-pessimism is actively threatening the American economy. The country has rapidly been losing market share in high-tech manufactured exports:

Value of high-technology exports

Source: World Bank

To keep up, the U.S. cant rely on a cheap labor advantage; it will have to automate. Other rich countries business and political elites understand this. Even though their populaces are also afraid of job displacement, a number have installed far more manufacturing robots than the U.S. has:

The U.S. is falling behind in automating its workforce.

Source: International Federation of Robotics

China hasnt caught up in robots yet, but its trying. Meanwhile, some of its ports are fully automated, allowing them to rapidly outpace Americas antiquated ports. Longshore labor unions, fearful for their jobs, resist the new technology.

Automation is a race the U.S. cant afford to lose. But its not the only race where were running behind. In San Francisco, epicenter of the nations housing crisis, unions have opposed the use of modular housing construction a technology that promises to help bring down ruinously high construction costs.

Fear of vaccines, fear of automation, fear of modern housing construction these fears are holding back progress, threatening to erode the countrys competitiveness and create shortages of crucial goods. If the U.S. is going to take advantage of the incipient technology boom of the 2020s, it will have to shed this fear and recapture the techno-optimist attitude of the mid 20th century.

But how to do that? Americans need at least two big things to feel confident about technologys ability to improve their lives.

The first is security. With national health insurance and job-finding assistance, Americans would be far less worried about switching jobs. That would let them view automation as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Second, Americans need wealth to be more broadly distributed across the populace. The explosion of information technology since the 1980s coincided with a vast increase in economic inequality. The technology probably wasnt the cause of much of the disparities, but people cant help mistaking correlation for causation. Also, inequality means many people dont feel like theyll be able to share in the benefits technology brings. So to make average Americans embrace the future, we need to give them a greater stake in that future.

Spinning beautiful futuristic visions and crowing publicly about the very real accomplishments of scientists and engineers is all well and good. We should do more of that. But without social systems that spread around the prosperity that technology creates, well continue to fight an uphill battle to get regular people to love technology.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:Noah Smith at nsmith150@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:Susan Warren at susanwarren@bloomberg.net

Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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Automation Is a Race the U.S. Can't Afford to Lose - Bloomberg

Nearly 60 Percent of Finance Professionals Reveal Finance Back Office Systems Are Not Meeting Their Needs

SANTA CLARA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 28, 2021 /AUDITORIA.AI, a pioneer in AI-driven automation solutions for corporate finance teams, today announced the results of the second-annual State of Automation in the Back Office report. Tipping Point: 2021 State of Automation in the Back Office Report revealed that while automation adoption is widespread across industries, it has yet to permeate the corporate finance department fully.

Click here to download the results of the Tipping Point: 2021 State of Automation in the Back Office Report.

"The opportunities for intelligent, autonomous finance operations continue to rapidly evolve, and offer strategic differentiators for finance leaders to future-proof their back-office operations," said Rohit Gupta, CEO and co-founder, Auditoria. "While once thought to be the fast followers within organizations, the results of the Tipping Point: 2021 State of Automation in the Back Office Report show that now is the time for corporate finance to become the early adopters of the autonomous enterprise."

Auditoria surveyed more than 600 U.S.-based financial professionals in spring 2021, with titles ranging from Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to Finance Specialist. Key results include:

It's status quo in the finance back office. Results showed that 58 percent of finance professionals do not believe that the finance back office is sufficiently automated, and one-third of finance teams said they are process-heavy.

Repetitive manual tasks rule the roost in finance. Time spent on repetitive tasks is the top challenge for finance professionals followed by time spent checking and updating data. Additionally, more than 50 percent of finance professionals want a reduction in both manual and repetitive tasks.

Accounts Payable is the most manual back-office process. Almost a third of finance professionals believe that the Accounts Payable involved the most manual work within the finance back office, followed by Accounts Receivable.

Finance is ready to embrace the future. While almost half do not use artificial intelligence (AI) in finance, a third of finance want to invest in new technologies to improve business processes within the next year.

The results of the Tipping Point: 2021 State of Automation in the Back Office Report indicate that the corporate finance back-office must embrace automation to survive in the digital-first corporate environment. With other departments traditionally at the forefront of innovation, finance must shed the reputation that they are slow to adopt new technology and utilize advanced systems, allowing the back office to contribute more directly to the strategic growth of an organization.

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Auditoria helps modern finance teams accelerate finance transformation by dramatically improving cash performance. Built with cutting-edge AI, ML, Cognitive RPA, NLP, and Computer Vision, Auditoria streamlines and automates collections, adds controls to procurement spend, and optimizes cash performance. In addition, Auditoria integrates with industry-leading ERP and Financial applications, including Bill.com, Oracle ERP Cloud, Oracle NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Workday, and collaboration tools such as Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace.

Download the results of the Tipping Point: 2021 State of Automation in the Back Office Report today: https://info.auditoria.ai/2021-ebook-survey

About Auditoria

Auditoria is an AI-driven SaaS automation provider for corporate finance that automates back-office business processes involving tasks, analytics, and responses in Vendor Management, Accounts Receivables, Planning, and Audit. By leveraging natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, Auditoria's platform removes friction and repetition from mundane tasks while also automating complex functions, such as predictive analytical forecasting. Corporate finance and accounting teams use Auditoria to accelerate business value while minimizing heavy IT involvement, improving business resilience, lowering attrition, and accelerating business insights. Give your finance teams superpowers at Auditoria.ai.

Follow Auditoria on LinkedIn and Twitter to stay connected.

Trademarks of Bill.com, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Sage, and Workday are the properties of their respective owners.

Media Contact:

Meaghan McGrathYork IEcommunications@auditoria.ai

SOURCE: Auditoria

View source version on accesswire.com: https://www.accesswire.com/653169/AuditoriaAI-Announces-the-Results-of-Tipping-Point-2021-State-of-Automation-in-the-Back-Office-Report

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Auditoria.AI Announces the Results of Tipping Point: 2021 State of Automation in the Back Office Report - Yahoo Finance

Domino's is one of the leading pizza brands in the UK, delivering over 100 million freshly baked pizzas each year from over 1,200 stores nationwide. However, innovation for the company isn't just about pushing the boundaries of pizza making (please see theDouble Decadence as a prime example), but is also about using modern digital technologies to improve customer experience.

We at diginomica have writtenfrequently about the company's digital investments, which have delivered strong returns for the organization in recent years. And last week we got the chance to hear from Marius Poskus, IT Security Operations Analyst at Domino's, about how the company is using automation in the cloud to shift towards a proactive approach to threat management.

Poskus was speaking at theAvantra Summit, where he said that whilst moving to the cloud can deliver significant benefits, buyers also need to recognize the associated risks - particularly as it relates to operations management and security. Poskus said:

What I find with companies that have decided to lift and shift into the cloud, is there's a misunderstanding of responsibility. Companies use IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, but you need to remember that when you lift and shift to the cloud, if you use virtual machines for example, the cloud provider is only responsible for the bare metal.

You still need to patch your operating systems, you need to be configuring your virtual networks, applications and all the data. I think sometimes companies misunderstand where their responsibilities lie and have problems. There is a real challenge there but that challenge can be solved in a way, with automation.

Poskus said that cloud allows companies to improve the speed and ease of their deployments, and means easier scalability and virtually unlimited capacity. However, organizations need to be mindful of shifting to operational costs and a change in control structures. He added:

Depending on which responsibility model you choose, there's a certain loss of control. Depending how and what you use, there's cost variation, so it can be hard to predict how much you're going to spend over the next year. There's also potentially a lack of support - you're not always going to get your questions answered very quickly. There's also a reliance on the internet and potential security threats.

The overarching theme from Poskus's presentation is that Domino's is using automation to target low hanging fruit, in terms of its security incident and response approach. Poskus provided numerous examples of how Domino's is automating as much as possible so that the company's Cyber Security Operations can invest time in tackling more complex issues.

For instance, Domino's is using automation to identify malware across its virtual machines - but is also changing its response depending on the time of day a threat is identified. Poskus explained:

We run a hybrid automation model at Domino's. We automate a very simple response to incidence, but we scale our automated response depending on the times as well. So, for example, some of the events we can automate 24/7, but some we only want to automate overnight.

We want to automatically collect packages from the machines where malware has been found, for example. But if it happens at midnight when we are not working, we might want to automatically isolate that machine, collect the logging package, and then when I come online at 9am, I know that the machine has been isolated and can't infect anyone else. And then I can investigate and see what has happened.

Poskus said that there is a lot of scope when it comes to automating to improve security in the cloud, and plenty of quick wins to be had. But added that it's important to remember that what works for one company, may not work for another - and so a lot of time needs to be invested in figuring out how your business operates and where the use of automation will be most impactful. He said:

Build up stories of how departments work together, where you can get quick wins from automation, where you don't need human interaction.

Domino's is using Microsoft Azure as its cloud platform of choice and Poskus pointed to its cloud policy feature as a way of further improving security automation. Cloud policy allows organizations to govern every existing or future resource deployed, managing policies in a centralized location, where compliance can be tracked and changes can be quickly identified. GCP and Azure have similar features too.

Poskus said:

When launching virtual machines, you can launch a policy that means scanning all virtual machines, say, every 24 hours, which then reports to me the machines that don't have a vulnerability management agent installed on them. It can report the machines that don't have the latest security patch on them. And we can remediate all of that.

It's an easy example of how we can monitor all of our infrastructure. If you've got hundreds or thousands of virtual machines it's impossible, or at least very painful, to find out what is missing. Also with some of the policies you can build in a quick fix, so you can fix it with one click of a button.

Domino's is also using automation playbooks to identify anomalies for threat detection. Playbooks allow for rules to be written for certain scenarios that enable automation technologies to identify potential threats. Poskus explained:

For example, we have alerts coming in for impossible travel. Sometimes people might be travelling or they might be using a VPN. Most of our people are based in the UK, but sometimes you can get a login from the UK and then from Thailand within 60 minutes. That creates an impossible travel alert.

So we created a playbook, which says that when an incident is created in Azure Sentinel that matches impossible travel, if the user has passed MFA successfully, please close the incident because we know that that's the person that logged in. If false, then please send us a report so we can investigate.

Poskus said that the key for Domino's in thinking through its approach to automation, is that it wants its security analysts to be working on threats that need human attention - rather than wasting time on tasks that could be carried out by machines. This will mean a more thoughtful, proactive approach to security response. He added:

Automating means better decision making, because you can automate some of the decisions. We can reduce the time of analysts actually working and investigating some low severity incidents, because we can automate them. It's damage limitation, as well. If your Security Operations Center does not have a team that can operate 24/7, you can use automation out of hours and prevent specific incidents from spreading. Once that human interaction is needed, you can pick it up on the next day.

I think what's happening with Cyber Security Operations, scaling up means moving from reactive defence to being proactive and chasing the bad guys. Instead of reacting to what happened yesterday, we try to predict and detect what might happen in the future.

See the rest here:

How Dominos UK is using automation in the cloud to improve security - Diginomica

PHOTO:Matthew Hurst

Automation is the key to fast testing with high quality its how you deliver product quality at speed. But heres the catch: Automation is easier said than done. When it comes to the necessary skills, automation still requires some sort of coding.

For all you manual testers: if you have a developer friend or a penchant for coding, now is the time to invite them out to coffee every week, or bust out that coding book youve been using as a doorstop. To become a beginning automator, you need to create a few different things all of which require some coding under your belt.

So where do you start? You have a few options when it comes to the how:

The first two are self-explanatory, but heres a little more info on the third: Its pretty easy to find the testing tools you need for this scenario. Basically, you need tools that have AI (record and playback, in particular). Coding comes into play of course, but AI-driven products give the best of both worlds: learn to code while using technology to help you get started.

The reason this could happen is when you use the record-and-playback, you can see the scripts created and learn from the proposed scripts.

To learn to code, first choose a language. I recommend Python or JavaScript. Both are relatively easy to start with, and most software vendors have robust support for them. There are lots of communities (more on that below) to draw on and many ways to learn before you commit to being the automator of the group or business.

With a language picked out and a place to learn how to create scripts, it's time to get your tech stack in order. Its no simple task. You need to understand how automation works. Find someone in your organization who already does automation and see what theyre doing.

If no one is readily available, a ton of different testing platforms can help you collaborate on the scripts and stacks. Find out what products you need to learn and download, integrate and support. Again, thats a lot of technology knowledge requirements but dont worry. There are many open source communities already working in your area that can help.

Related Article: The Real-Life Steps to Making DevQualOps Happen

Dont try to do this all yourself. Thousands of people have been in your situation, and theyve either used their online community to seek help, or theyve come back to give help. Either way, the software development community is a phenomenon in and of itself, and by starting down this path you become a member of it.

While youre adopting the automation mindset, choose a philosophy for development. Behavior-driven development (BDD), for instance, can help frame what type of automation to engage in. And if you choose BDD, then Cucumber Open, Cucumber School and CucumberStudio are all super helpful places to go for learning and support. Overall, a hybrid, blended, balanced approach is the best.

While this article focuses on getting you started in the world of continuous testing and continuous deployment (CI/CD), that doesnt mean manual testing is pass. Far from it.

Manual testing, or exploratory testing, continues to be imperative in an organization that looks to drive quality into the fabric of their BDD or agile development lifecycle. At the end of the day, the most successful teams and organizations support the most diverse set of testing and automation practices. These hybrid organizations are able to adapt to the changing needs of the business as well as the changing requirements of the products and applications were building, designing, and imagining.

So, a truly agile organization strives to blend the most amount of automation with the best exploratory testing to give the teams a 360-degree quality view of their products preproduction all while implementing systems to monitor the performance of their product in post-production.

Related Article: Strategies for Implementing Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment

Thats the gist of what you need to know. For a quick recap, heres a basic formula you can follow to get started:

Learning Java

Learning Python

Learning about testing frameworks

Selenium/Appium/Cypress.io

Communities to join

Joanna Schloss joined SmartBear as VP of Product Marketing with more than 20 years of experience successfully transforming and evolving both global 500 companies and startups. She has extensive knowledge in big data analytics and business intelligence and has launched a variety of tools and applications for various companies, including Confluent, IBM, and Oracle, among others.

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How to Get Started With Test Automation - CMSWire

Those with digitalised internal controls are nimble enough to adjust their people practices and control processes to embrace new and upcoming regulations.

Firms that have automated their processes are already set up for success ahead of the imminent UK-style Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) regime, according to David Brightman, director of product marketing at BlackLine.

Businesses that are rushing to prepare for the anticipated regulations influenced by the 2002 US act, which is focused on greater transparency of financial controls, will have a competitive advantage in the market, he adds.

Its best practice for these organisations to start thinking about UK-style SOX and being ahead of the game. You dont just flip the switch overnight. UK firms should take advantage of this interim period to establish strong controls.

This will save firms from scrambling and diverting finance and accounting resources when guidelines and finer details are announced by the regulatory boards, says Brightman.

Two-thirds (66 percent) of UK-listed firms have said they need to improve their system of internal controls to comply with the UK version of SOX regulation, according to a recent survey by audit technology firm Galvanize. Furthermore, 85 percent need to invest more in updating their technology stacks to keep up with UK audit reform.

Those who have already digitalised their internal processes will only need to adjust certain controls to be compliant with upcoming regulations, Brightman adds.

Firms will be well prepared and have a foundation of strengthened controls to support their growth and business performance initiatives. Theyll be resilient and best prepared for the upcoming changes that come within the regulatory environment, whether its UK SOX or other European mandates that are coming our way.

The secret is unified cloud-based technology where all controls are stored and mapped to the risks that theyre mitigating. A single repository for all controls and supporting documentation means its easy for control owners and third parties to ensure controls are relevant, designed appropriately, and up to date.

However, Brightman points out that becoming UK-style SOX compliant could still be a lengthy process for businesses who already have a controlled environment with no recognisable weaknesses. In fact, Big Four firm KPMG estimates that it could take up to 36 months for companies to prepare.

Its about understanding the overall systems architecture. So, documenting the controls and control owners and mapping these to risks ensuring existence, coverage, and completeness, he says.

Preparing for UK-style SOX

Firms should assess their current controls no matter where they are in their digital transformation journey, advises Brightman.

By doing that, they can see any control gaps or where there is an over-reliance on spreadsheets to manage the control environment. This shifts the controls that occur after the reporting periods to controls that occur in real time. But all within close proximity of the underlying business transaction happening.

Assessing the risks and current controls will allow firms to become preventative instead of reactive, adds Brightman.

Alongside this, organisations should establish a strong corporate culture now, upskill employees, confirm who the control owners are, identify any gaps, and standardise practices all will be important in ensuring that everyone in the business can keep up with the additional demands of a UK-style SOX regulation, says Brightman.

All too often, each accountant or control owner has their own format for key controls, such as account reconciliations, review notation, and even how or where documents are stored. Decentralised processes and lack of standardisation can also extend audit cycles and costs and increase variability in the audit process.

Learning from the US

Market participants are expecting a similar style regime to the 2002 US Act after the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategys (BEIS) whitepaper on audit and corporate governance made several references to introducing a similar structure in the UK.

Learning from the United States implementation, Brightman says UK firms should take a no regrets attitude and safeguard the business from possible future disruption. Firms need to have a mindset to drive continuous improvements in their internal controls over financial reporting.

Since the introduction of US SOX regulations, clear improvements have been evident in the quality of financial reporting. The UK can learn that its ultimately going to benefit from more reliable, better quality financial statements, which is a good thing and advocates transparency.

Firms need to have a control framework that is centralized and digitalized, so they can identify any control weaknesses. That gives them time to remediate them.

Future regulations will see firms turn towards technological solutions as the business case becomes more obvious, adds Brightman.

Technology is the key enabler to really streamline the environment. Once you have technology, firms are in a good position to be more resilient and prepared for any other changes that come down the line.

Get your copy of this white paper to learn how to improve compliance in a changing regulatory landscape.

Originally posted here:

Firms 'set up for success' ahead of UK SOX with automation - Accountancy Age

Representational Image  |  Photo Credit: Getty Images

Mumbai: Logistics companies have gained significantly in the past few weeks with TCI Express gaining 75% and Gati gaining nearly 60% since early May. ET NOW caught up with the management of TCI Express to understand the outlook for the industry and the company.

In an exclusive interview with ET NOW, Chander Agarwal, MD, TCI Express said, Demand is about 85% of March levels, and if there is the third wave we could see demand at about 95% levels. Expect SME volumes to sustain going and SME will be a substantial part of revenues throughout the year. He said, Logistics industry is the backbone of the economy, FY22 GDP growth expectation is about 8-9% then we should be able to grow 16-18%.

Agarwal believes they should be able to achieve margin guidance. Management had guided that the FY22 margin would improve ~100bps, and it is targeting a 20% EBITDA margin by FY23. 2021 will see major automation in technology upgrade and will spend about Rs 50 cr. The company has capex plan of Rs 500cr - of this 50% will be on technology and automation advancement and this will be a game changer for the Company.

Agarwal said, we are the only debt-free logistics company and Return on capital employed can be maintained. The company has a robust capex plan but this will be funded by internal accruals. Volume growth, better capacity utilisation will aid margins going ahead, automation will improve capacity utilisation and will improve efficiencies.

Speaking about the industry, Agarwal said that there are three challenges that the industry faces. High Fuel prices is an industry concern, India has one of the highest fuel prices in the world, labour needs to be modernised otherwise automation will take over. Infrastructure has improved, but need to see how it can be outside cities to avoid congestion.

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TCI Express: Confident of achieving margin guidance; automation will be game changer for the company - Times Now

Wage growth has been stagnant for the better part of five decades. What's been powering the stagnation is still debated.

Over time, the supposed culprits have included the greed-is-good capitalism of the 1980s, deunionization, rising market power, and weak productivity.

Yet a new study suggests automation has had, by far, the largest negative impact. Such innovations gutted the US's middle class, curbed real wage growth, and left the country with only meager gains in return, MIT professor Daron Acemoglu and Boston University professor Pascual Restrepo said in a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Between 50% and 70% of changes in US wage structure since the 1980s are linked to pay declines in industries experiencing rapid automation, according to the paper, and so-called task displacement has been "particularly high" for middle-income Americans. Groups facing the highest levels of task displacement also saw their real wages fall the most.

Taken together, they write that automation was the most significant force wiping out middle-class jobs and widening the wage gap from the 1980s onward. Rising market power, markups, and deunionization "do not appear to play a major role in US wage inequality," they added.

Sectors hit hardest by automation since the 1980s include vehicle manufacturing, printing and publishing, and the manufacturing of rubber and plastic products, according to the team's model.

The trade-off between task displacement and productivity also seems uneven, the researchers said. While displacing workers from their jobs powered "sizeable increases in wage inequality," it only made for relatively small gains in productivity.

To be sure, other dynamics weighed on wage growth starting in the 1970s. Women's participation in the workforce ramped up through the '70s and '80s, although systemic pay inequities have left women's earnings broadly lagging men's.

Offshoring of US jobs to cheaper labor markets likely dampened wage growth and widened the pay gap as well, the researchers said. Still, the effects pale in comparison to the impact of automation, they added.

Changes seen throughout the pandemic suggest automation could be having a more positive impact as the US labor market recovers. Productivity soared 5.4% in the first quarter of 2021, marking the fastest rate of growth since the 1990s. The leap suggests that forms of automation made popular during the pandemic think QR-code menus and virtual real estate tours could provide a permanent boost to productivity as the country reopens.

Such a pick-up in productivity can kickstart a "virtuous cycle" for American workers, economics writer Noah Smith said in a June 13 blog post. Increased productivity gives workers a stronger case for demanding higher pay. And as businesses reap the benefits of automation and other innovations, other sectors tend to tap into such productivity-boosting measures. This can spark a cycle of stronger wage growth and rising productivity, Smith wrote.

History suggests such a cycle can exist without automation wiping out jobs, Smith added. The employment rate just before the pandemic sat at the same highs as those seen in 2000 and near the record-high of the 1990s. Labor-saving innovations since the 1990s have boosted productivity, yet adequate job openings remained in the years since.

If the last four decades are precedent, automation is likely to further displace workers as the US reopens. It's unclear where those workers will find new jobs, but past waves of technological development signal there will be "plenty of work for people to do," Smith said.

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Automation helped kill up to 70% of the US's middle-class jobs since 1980, study says - Business Insider