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Rolling Back to Manual Work: An Exploratory Research on Robotic Process Re-Manualization

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Business Process Management: Blockchain, Robotic Process Automation, and Central and Eastern Europe Forum (BPM 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 459))

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Abstract

Robotic process automation (RPA) is a technology that is presented as a universal tool that solves major problems of modern businesses. It aims to reduce costs, improve quality and create customer value. However, the business reality differs from this aspiration. After interviews with managers, we found that implementation of robots does not always lead to the assumed effect and some robots are subsequently withdrawn from companies. In consequence, people take over robotized tasks to perform them manually again, and in practice, replace back robots—what we call ‘re-manualization’. Unfortunately, companies do not seem to be aware of this possibility until they experience it on their own, to the best of our knowledge, no previous research described or analysed this phenomenon so far. This lack of awareness, however, may pose risks and even be harmful for organizations. In this paper, we present an exploratory study. We used individual interviews, group discussions with managers experienced in RPA, and secondary data analysis to elaborate on the re-manualization phenomenon. As a result, we found four types of ‘cause and effect’ narrations that reflect reasons for this to occur: (1) overenthusiasm for RPA, (2) low awareness and fear of robots, (3) legal or supply change and (4) code faults.

This research is part of the projects PID2019-105455GB-C31 and RTI2018-101204-B-C22 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033/and ERDF A way of making Europe; grant P18-FR-2895 funded by Junta de Andalucía/FEDER, UE; and grant US-1381595 (US/JUNTA/FEDER, UE).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Lodz, Lodz, Poland

    Artur Modliński

  2. LUT University, Lappeenranta, Finland

    Damian Kedziora

  3. Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain

    Andrés Jiménez Ramírez

  4. I3US Institute, SCORE Lab, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain

    Adela del-Río-Ortega

Authors
  1. Artur Modliński
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  2. Damian Kedziora
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  3. Andrés Jiménez Ramírez
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  4. Adela del-Río-Ortega
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Artur Modliński .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Andrea Marrella

  2. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Raimundas Matulevičius

  3. University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Renata Gabryelczyk

  4. Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, Ingolstadt, Germany

    Bernhard Axmann

  5. University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Vesna Bosilj Vukšić

  6. Télécom SudParis, Evry, France

    Walid Gaaloul

  7. University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Mojca Indihar Štemberger

  8. Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

    Andrea Kő

  9. Data61, Eveleigh, NSW, Australia

    Qinghua Lu

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Modliński, A., Kedziora, D., Jiménez Ramírez, A., del-Río-Ortega, A. (2022). Rolling Back to Manual Work: An Exploratory Research on Robotic Process Re-Manualization. In: Marrella, A., et al. Business Process Management: Blockchain, Robotic Process Automation, and Central and Eastern Europe Forum. BPM 2022. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 459. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16168-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16168-1_10

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