Intellyx BrainBlog for Camunda by Jason Bloomberg
From the Jacquard loom in the mid-eighteenth century to the robots on modern assembly lines, automation has always focused on removing humans from some process to increase speed, accuracy, and quality, thus improving the bottom line.
This ‘removing humans’ context for automation makes sense in the manufacturing world but has never translated to the world of knowledge work—at least not as well as we might have hoped.
Over the years, there have been technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) that remove human tasks from simple processes involving data entry and the like. While RPA can certainly save an organization money, it has largely fallen short of its more strategic process transformation goals.
Process transformation is, in fact, the singular challenge facing enterprises today as they seek to leverage automation to improve the bottom line. Instead of focusing on eliminating people from processes, however, process transformation changes the way people work.
We call such change digitalization: the transformation of the processes and roles that make up the operations of an organization. Only via digitalization can an organization achieve the full benefits of automation – and by extension, the comprehensive change in the business itself we call digital transformation.
From process orchestration to digitalization
Rather than beginning with the simple task automation of RPA, process transformation should begin with process orchestration. According to Camunda:
Process orchestration coordinates the various moving parts (or endpoints) of a business process, and sometimes even ties multiple processes together. Process orchestration helps you work with the people, systems, and devices you already have – while achieving even the most ambitious goals around end-to-end process automation.
In other words, process orchestration focuses on coordinating people, systems, and devices rather than attempting to replace human steps in processes. As a result, process orchestration provides better visibility and control over end-to-end workflows than task automation can.
Process transformation, in turn, typically requires changes across many different processes, thus impacting many people within the organization. The best way to tackle such challenges is one step at a time.
German insurance company Provinzial Nordwest took their first steps toward process transformation in 2014, when it brought in the Camunda Platform to automate its ‘request for insurance documents’ process as a proof of concept.
This proof of concept quickly brought the consideration of changing roles into focus, as clerks had to approach and complete the ‘request for documents’ process differently than they had in the past. In other words, this simple automation exercise led to a clear requirement for digitalization, as it promised to transform both processes and roles within the organization.
Read the entire BrainBlog here.
