Teknologin har alltid påverkat samhället, tekniska lösningar utvecklas hastigt. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) är en robot som genomför repetitiva, enkla återupprepande, uppgifter som hanteras på exakt samma sätt varje gång istället för att det ska hanteras av anställda. Implicit kunskap är kunskap som ofta byggs upp av erfarenheter och kan därför vara svår att förklara för andra. Syftet med rapporten är att undersöka hur Robotic Process Automation påverkar verksamhetsutvecklingen och den implicita kunskapen hos organisationer. Därav blir frågeställningarna; “Hur påverkar Robotic Process Automation verksamhetsutveckling?” och “Hur påverkas den implicita kunskapen när medarbetare ersätts med RPA?”. Digitaliseringen har möjliggjort flertalet nya uppfinningar, bland annat har internet-of- things utvecklats. Internet-of-things behövs för att produkter ska kunna kopplas ihop med internet. RPA-robotar behöver internet för att fungera och behöver därmed internet-of- things. När organisationer ersätter medarbetare med RPA kan kunskapsöverföring vara betydelsefullt, den tidigare implicita kunskapen skulle kunna transformeras till explicit. Strategin som användes var abduktiv ansats, vilket är en kombination av deduktiv- och induktiv ansats. För att samla in den empiriska datan har kvalitativa intervjuer med Södra, Scania CV AB, Uddevalla kommun, Stena Line Finance och OKQ8 genomförts. Urvalet gjordes med hjälp av en kombination av snöbollseffekten och information. Litteraturen menar att RPA inte ska ersätta människor, snarare att de frigör tid för människorna att jobba mer med värdeskapande aktiviteter. Samtliga organisationer nämner fördelen med att mer tid kan läggas på värdeskapande aktiviteter istället för enkla repetitiva uppgifter, vilket även genererar nöjdare kunder, vilket är positivt för verksamhetsutvecklingen. RPA gör dessutom uppgifterna till en lägre kostnad, vilket gör att organisationerna kan lägga sina resurser på annat och möjligen utveckla andra saker inom verksamheten. En nackdel med RPA är att de inte uppfyller sin fulla kapacitet utan internetanslutning, vilket bland annat Södra lagt märke till, detta påverkar verksamhetsutvecklingen i en negativ riktning. Litteraturen förklarar att det går att överföra implicit kunskap till explicit. Södra och OKQ8 använder sig av workshops för att behålla den tidigare implicita kunskapen medans Scania har utsett olika personer på olika avdelningar som har extra koll på den implicita kunskapen. Uddevalla kommun har gjort manualer som beskriver hur RPA-roboten gör och hur processen sköts manuellt, Stena Line Finance använder sig av avstämningsmöten. Slutsatsen som kan dras utifrån rapporten är att verksamhetsutvecklingen påverkas mestadels positivt. RPA har bland annat lett till mer tid för värdeskapande aktiviteter, vilket utvecklar organisationerna. Tidsbesparing, då RPA-roboten utför uppgifterna på en kortare tid. Det är mer kostnadseffektivt med tanke på att resurserna kan omfördelas. Den implicita kunskapen påverkas relativt lite av att medarbetare blir utbytta mot RPA-robotar. Detta då samtliga organisationer redan gjort åtgärder för att överföra den implicita kunskapen till explicit och sedan på olika sätt vidarefört kunskapen inom verksamheten. / The technology has always been affecting society while technological solutions are rapidly developing, there information gets handled faster than ever. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a robot that performs repetitive tasks that gets handled exactly the same way each time, that normally is taken care of by humans. When it comes to implicit knowledge, it’s often built up by experience and is difficult to communicate and explain to others. This study investigate how Robotic Process Automation affect the business development and the implicit knowledge, that can’t be communicated inside organizations. Our empirical data were collected by using literary sources relevant to this study and research, as well as a qualitative study, which included five organisations: Scania CV AB, OKQ8, Stena Line, Södra and Uddevalla kommun. One disadvantage with the RPA is that they do not meet their full capacity without having internet connection, which Södra have noticed. The business development is therefore most positively affected by the implementation of RPA. Results of our empirical shows that the implicit knowledge is relatively affected by the replacement of humans to RPA-robots. This is because all organisations has been taking act to transfer all of the implicit knowledge explicitly so that the knowledge stays within the business.

This study investigates the intra-organisational adoption of technological innovation and focuses specifically on the perceived influence of innovation, organizational, individual and managerial facilitation factors on the adoption process of Robotic process automation (RPA) technology. Based on an exploration and integration of eight adoption related frameworks from Innovation diffusion, User acceptance and Change management fields, a conceptual model linking the system level change to individual level commitment process was created. The model integrates concepts from Diffusion of Innovation, Theory of Reasoned Action, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Technology Acceptance Model, Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use, Lewin’s 3 stage-model, Kotter’s 8-step model and Change Institutionalization framework. A qualitative case study at Stora Enso’s Finance delivery function was conducted utilizing semi-structured interviews to contribute to better understanding about the adoption process of RPA. The empirical data was then analysed against the created conceptual model. The findings from the case study suggest that contextual factors related to innovation, organizational, individual and managerial facilitation attributes are perceived to influence the adoption of RPA. In relation to innovation attributes the key themes identified were RPA advantages, risks and threats, ease of understanding and use, development effort and RPA-process fit. Under the category of organizational attributes, the main factors identified were RPA-organization fit, previous RPA experience, RPA capabilities and organizational support. Key individual attribute related factors were personality, time resources, previous success with RPA and personal motivation, and main managerial facilitation attributes were management support, communication, knowledge and experience sharing, training and skill development and employee involvement.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / In the 1930‟s, in the United States, Borst and Woodburn developed a rain simulator to conduct studies on the behavior of water runoff. Over time a lot of rain simulators were developed to control and reproduce the characteristics of natural rain. From the 1990‟s, electronic technology started to act more effectively in agricultural machinery and equipment, enabling for better control and process automation. In this scenario, the objective of this dissertation is to present a conception of an automated technical system to control the rain process. The proposed system is able to measure pressure, temperature, water flow in the system and record the data. The system has a microcontroller mounted on the CUSCOPIC kit. Also, the software programming was done in C language. The system was submitted to three experiments: the uniformity of rain distribution with one nozzle, the uniformity of rain distribution with two nozzles and the measurement of kinetic energy at the nozzle. The result of the experiments made it possible to verify that the nozzle, recommended by the manufacturer, was accurate for the number of drops at the same range of the diameter. However, the kinetic energy in both scenarios corresponded to 13.09% and 2.3% of natural rain so, it was not recommended for their use. The use of the concept contributed to the generation of simulated rain with more stability of the pressure and flow of water in the system. Reports generated by the prototype enable recording and tracing the parameters used in each experiment. / Na década de 1930, nos Estados Unidos, Borst e WoodBurn desenvolveram um simulador de chuva para realizar estudos sobre o comportamento do escoamento superficial da água. Ao longo do tempo foi desenvolvido um grande número de simuladores de chuva para controlar e reproduzir as características da chuva natural. A partir da década de 1990 a eletrônica passou a atuar de forma mais efetiva em máquinas e equipamentos agrícolas, possibilitando melhores condições de controle e automação nos processos. Neste contexto, o objetivo desta dissertação é apresentar a concepção de um sistema técnico automatizado para o controle do processo de geração de chuva. O sistema desenvolvido realiza medições de pressão, temperatura e vazão da água no sistema, registrando os dados na forma de relatório. A concepção utiliza microcontrolador montado no kit de desenvolvimento CUSCOPIC e a programação do software foi realizada em linguagem C. O sistema foi submetido a três experimentos, uniformidade de distribuição da chuva com um bico, uniformidade de distribuição da chuva com dois bicos e medição da energia cinética do bico. O resultado dos experimentos possibilitou verificar que o bico recomendado pelo fabricante apresenta precisão do número de gotas na mesma faixa de diâmetro, porém a energia cinética nos dois cenários experimentados corresponde a 13,09% e 2,3% da chuva natural, não sendo recomendado o seu uso. A utilização da concepção contribuiu para a geração de chuva simulada com maior estabilidade da pressão e da vazão da água no sistema. Os relatórios gerados pelo protótipo possibilitam registrar e rastrear os parâmetros utilizados em cada experimento.

Studien undersöker hur implementeringen av Robotic Process Automation (RPA) påverkat de fyra storbankerna i Sverige: Handelsbanken, Nordea, SEB och Swedbank, rutiner på lånesidan. Lånesidan står för cirka 50 procent av storbankernas tillgångar på koncernnivå och utgör därmed en betydande del av deras verksamhet. Nya digitala aktörer hotar bankerna och de behöver därför effektivisera processer och beskära kostnader. RPA är ett softwareprogram som tar över manuella processer som tidigare utförts av människor och kan hjälpa företag att beskära kostnader samt effektivisera processer. För att studera förändringarna av rutiner gjordes en flerfallstudie där empirin analyserades genom Feldman och Pentlands teori om rutiner och Pentland och Feldmans modell. Efter intervjuer med de fyra storbankerna kunde det konstateras att samtliga banker implementerat RPA. Tre av de fyra storbankerna har implementerat RPA på lånesidan. RPA har ändrat låneprocessen genom att: Effektivisera den, gjort den mer enhetliga, möjliggjort för de anställda att fokusera på kunder och utföra mer avancerade arbetsuppgifter samt gjort den mer detaljstyrd. Den ostensiva aspekten har blivit starkare i låneprocessen medan den performativa aspekten fått mindre utrymme och vid processer som helt ersatts av RPA har den ostensiva aspekten och den performativa aspekten blivit ett.

Automatisering av arbetsprocesser har varit ett aktuellt tema för många verksamheter i många år. Ofta är dessa automatiseringar relaterade till fysisk automation som exempelvis robotar vid produktionslinjer. Men med dagens teknik finns det potential för att automatisera arbetsprocesser i verksamheters back-office processer. Robotic process automation, eller förkortat som RPA, är en teknik som har förmågan att imitera användarens steg i en arbetsprocess och återskapa arbetsprocessen utan den mänskliga resursen. Denna studie har som syfte att fastställa utmaningar och möjligheter som är relaterade vid införande av RPA i verksamheter. Genom intervjuer och tidigare publicerat material om RPA, skall denna studie erbjuda en djupare förståelse kring utmaningar och möjligheter för den stigande trenden robotic process automation. / Automation has been a hot topic for many businesses for a number of years now. The term is usually related to automation of physical machinery like robots to speed up production and assembling of cars. But with currently technology, the automation has taken a step further. Automation is now capable of automating back-office processes. Robotic Process Automation, also known as RPA, is a technology that is capable of imitating the users step in a business process and replicate it automatically, without human intervention. The purpose of this study is to determine the challenges and opportunities related to the implementation of RPA in businesses. By performing interviews and examining existing material about RPA, this study aims to deliver a deeper and wider understanding of the rising technology that is Robotic Process Automation.

Background: Businesses today are transforming its financial and operative processes in order to survive on the market. The human interaction of the standardised work tasks is being replaced by Robotics Process Automation (RPA) in order to make the finance processes less costly and more time efficient. Thus, human employees are delegated more qualitative work tasks and their behaviour as well as knowledge are in need to be changed. In this process, barriers may occur, and managers need to make their employees adapt in a comprehensive way to overcome these.  Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to find adaptation barriers that occur when the finance professionals are adapting to more qualitative work tasks, and how the managers will make their employees do so in a comprehensive way.  Method: In order to carry out relevant information for this thesis, an abductive single case study was used. The qualitative data was conducted through semi-structured interviews with finance professionals at Volvo Group to retrieve appropriate data and valid information.  Findings: What was found from this research is a lack of the helicopter view among finance professionals today, which becomes the main barrier when they adapt to more qualitative work tasks. There are several steps which can be acknowledged from the two models McKinsey 7S and ADKAR in order to make the employees attain the helicopter view. Summarising these steps, it is clear that the main purpose for a successful adaptation process is to keep the employees involved and updated.

This master‘s thesis focuses on assessment of a particular part of information system of selected company and its ICT modification proposal. This thesis explains the problematics of information systems, business process management (BPM) and robotic process automation (RPA) in its theoretical part, then focuses on the current situation and detailed analysis of the selected business process. The final part provides a modification proposal using business process management and robotic process automation technology. The aim of the thesis is to design a solution that will optimize information system via process automation and robotization thus reducing work time, error rate and costs while increasing efficiency of this company.

The diploma thesis is focused on robotic proces automation of sending financial contracts for barrier option product. Thesis also deals with proces mapping and process improvement thanks to implementation of SWIFT systém and automatic data routing to all systems.

The diploma thesis will deal with process automation in the field of financial audit. The introductory part will theoretically introduce the subject of robotic process automation. Subsequently, the current state of the audit process in the company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will be described and analyzed. In the main part, the robot will be designed and implemented. Finally, the project and its benefits will be evaluated.

Master thesis focuses on payment process automatization of selected company XY, which will eliminate repetitive manual work and routine and will lead to shortening of the whole process. To reach this solution RPA – Robotic Process Automation was used. RPA was designed based on data analysis, which showed areas of process best suited for automatization. Part of the thesis is also evaluation of impacts of implemented RPA solution.