Nowadays, there is almost no aspect of our lives that is unaffected by automation. Some examples include washing machines, microwave ovens, autopilot mode for automobiles and airplanes, Nestlé using Robots to sell coffee pods in stores in Japan, Walmart testing drones to deliver products in the US, our bank checks being sorted using Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and ATMs.

The term automation is derived from the Greek words autos meaning self, and motos, meaning moving. It is believed to have been coined in the 1940s when there was an increased use of automated devices in mechanized production lines in the Ford Motor Company.

Automation, in simple words, is technology that deals with the application of machines and computers to the production of goods and services. This helps in getting work done with little or no human assistance.

With the advent of computers, many software systems were developed to accomplish tasks that were previously done on paper to manage businesses, or not being done at all due to the lack of tools. Some of these are bookkeeping, inventory management, and communications management.

There is also a type of software that ties these systems and people together in workflows, known as Business Process Management (BPM) tools. This software has been developed for areas such as record systems, engagement systems, insight systems, and innovation systems. These mostly replicate processes in real-life scenarios.

In the digital world, automation and software development are two different terms. Very often, however, one is confused with the other. If some portion of a workflow can be programmed to be done without human intervention, it can be called automation. For example, in order to pass any invoice in a payment system, Ms. Julia at ABC organization needs to check that goods have been delivered and recorded in an inventory management system. This is a cumbersome job, as it has to be done for each and every invoice. Also, for larger organizations, more people are needed to do this check on computers. However, Jack, an application developer, proposes that he can integrate those two systems using database integration techniques. He will write a procedure that will fetch data from the inventory management system and automate the check of receivables.

Developing an inventory management software system is called software development, while programming a step so that no more human intervention is required is called automation.

In this chapter, you will learn about the basic concepts of automation and Robotic process automation.