N E W S
“Piecemeal attempts to introduce IA as
‘add-ons’ or replacements for existing
processes just won’t cut it. Firms need
to consider two dimensions when seeking
www.engineeringnews.co.nz 7
’Technology supported by people’ is the new business model
For happier (and more productive) employees,
businesses need to shift from
a model of ‘people supported by technology’
to one of ‘technology supported
by people’ to keep up in the intelligent
automation (IA) race.
Professor Ilan Oshri from the University
of Auckland Business School participated
recently in a KPMG study that
looked at global experiences with IA. IA
includes artificial intelligence, machine
learning and robotic process automation
(RPA) – technology that can make
decisions, interact and learn at a human
like level was recently the province
of sci-fi but is now a part of everyday life
- think virtual bank assistants and CT
scans reviewed by trained algorithms.
Researchers interviewed 80 business
executives from multiple industries
across North America, Western Europe
and Asia Pacific about their experiences
of adopting IA and their future outlooks.
Professor Oshri says there was a disconnection
between expectations and
behaviour. “Enterprises have high expectations
about the transformative
power of IA, but too few are making the
kind of radical organisational transformations
needed to harness that power.”
Firms need to be making IA investment
decisions at the executive level, and
changing the way they run their business
around new processes driven by IA
technologies, the report says. Growing
evidence suggests that taking this strategic
‘digital first’ approach can pay for
itself 5-10 times over.
The main findings:
• nearly two-thirds of respondents plan
to put in place RPA within three years,
and nearly half plan to be using AI at
scale in the same timeframe
• despite these high expectations, readiness
was low, with nearly two-thirds
indicating a lack of in-house talent and
half struggling to define clear goals
and objectives for AI and accountability
for its return on investment
• most organisations are in the early
stages of knowing where to prioritise
deployment, how to measure benefits
and reconfigure staff
• many respondents expect to increase
investment in IA significantly over the
next five years, but report authors
doubt this will be enough in many cases
• respondents estimated that, by the
turn of the next decade, about one
third of jobs will be impacted by IA that
can replace repetitive manual labour
The report notes that traditional boundaries
between different parts of a company
– finance, human resources, IT –
are being eroded.
“The way we organise and do business
is changing due to IA and other digital
disruption,” says Professor Oshri, who is
in the Graduate School of Management.
Product
development in
novel formulas key
to plastics
Industry analysis by Frost &
Sullivan’s, Global Engineering
Plastics Market Forecast to 2024,
shows that rapid urbanisation
and rising purchasing power in
Asia, particularly China, India
and South Asia, have resulted in
booming demand for engineering
plastics in automotive, electronic,
and construction development
segments. The market is forecast
to reach US$104.32 billion by
2024, growing at a CAGR of 5.4%
between 2017 and 2024.
“The market presents enormous
opportunities for specialised
material manufacturers, as
evolving applications demand
new R&D, product development
and functional solutions,” says
Sayan Mukherjee, senior research
analyst, chemicals and materials,
EIA at Frost & Sullivan. “Product
development in novel formulas
and solutions to capture new
application markets in consultation
with OEMs and end users
will provide lucrative revenues,
product differentiation, and technological
advancements.”
REN232
intelligent automation solutions:
their business models and their data
structure.
“Firms that have not yet embarked on
digital transformation are unlikely to
significantly benefit from the wave of
IA solutions; however, not all is lost. By
considering a gradual shift to digital
platforms as a service, even firms with
legacy systems can still achieve significant
transformation in terms of becoming
a data-driven business and an innovative
business model venture.”
A third of respondents said that management’s
concerns over IA’s impact on
employees was the biggest obstacle.
But the report argues that automation
done well could improve employees’ lot.
“The ultimate result could actually be
happier employees… freed from routine
tasks and encouraged to take on more
strategic, significant work,” the authors
write. “Ultimately, humans and virtual robots
will work side by side – and, in many
cases robots will be able to analyse data
and answer questions, often faster and
better than humans. What robots won’t
be able to do is define the questions
and problems that need to be solved,
iterate deeply on the responses, and
prioritise solutions.”
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