robotic automation

The term Robotic automation refers to the automation of industrial and clerical processes using robots, of various guises. Robotic automation software refers to a class of software products used in that latter, clerical, context. Examples of robotic automation include the use of industrial robots in manufacturing and the use of software robots in automating clerical processes in services industries. In the latter case, the use of the term robot is metaphorical, conveying the similarity of those software products which are produced to provide a generic automation capability and then configured within the end user environment to execute manual and repetitive tasks to their industrial robot counterparts. The metaphor is apt in the sense that the softare “robot” is now mimicking or replacing a function classically associated with a person, for example in IVR voice recognition and chatbot technology as a means of data collection and distribution, in place of a person conducting a telephone conversation, for example. In general terms, robotic automation corresponds to an emerging trend for technology to replace the functions performed by humans, particularly in the service sector, where the adoption of and the concept of robotics falls significantly behind the rate and incidence of adoption of automation within manufacturing.