If anyone still believed that robots were confined to the world of science fiction, along with Star Wars' R2-D2, the recent bpmNEXT conference, held in California, quickly put that fallacy to rest.
Under the theme, 'Defining the Next Generation of Process Innovation', the conference examined a range of topics that not too long ago were considered decidedly futuristic: blockchain, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence (AI) and the impact of low-code/no-code, among others.
Robots meet AI
But it was robotic process automation (RPA) - and its integration with AI - that delighted delegates.
Possibly one of the most fascinating of the 24 demonstrations was that of an interactive robot, developed by French company, ITESOFT. The goal is for the robot to become a front-line customer-service agent, not in a call centre, but in real-time, face-to-face situations.
ITESOFT's product marketing manager, Francois Bonnet, made the point that the advanced use of RPA requires strict adherence to the discipline of business process management.
Each interaction with the robot has to trigger the right business process.
The robot - a perky, rather chatty robot head that followed the movement of the person in front of it - could greet the customer by name because of its facial recognition capabilities; respond to the customer's queries, thanks to voice recognition; and then lead the customer through a fairly complex process to choose a high-end product. The transaction concluded with the customer verifying his identity so that the order could be placed and packaged in a warehouse or dispatch area - probably by another robot.
"Customer-facing scenarios are changing," Bonnet said. "However, there have to be smooth links between the front and back office that unify the entire business process. Each interaction with the robot has to trigger the right business process and this indicates a bright future for BPM to embrace the new challenges that evolving technologies present."
Three R's of BPM
This and other robotic-related presentations and demonstrations bore out the prediction made by Nathaniel Palmer, VP and chief technology officer of Business Process Management, Inc. at an earlier bpmNext conference. Speaking about intelligent automation - automation that leverages rules, goals, business events and context to push the envelope of what can be automated - he said that BPM was never about automation.
"Automation in itself meant doing something in a non-intelligent way. BPM now allows us to expand the envelope by enabling us to have automation and intelligence at the same time."
He predicted that there would come a time when three R's would define BPM: robots, rules and decisioning (what he terms "smart things"), and relationships (particularly relationship data).
"Robots will learn by swarming and experience to consistently perform tasks better, every time, with each robot performing as well as every other robot in the process. But even while there is great innovation in the development of robots, that robot still needs to be part of a larger process," he said.