Page 38 - AAA MARCH - APRIL 2018 Online Magazine

INTERVIEW: UIPATH
RIGHT such as improving customer
service, enabling front-line staff
to retrieve more data at a faster
ALTERNATIVE rate and enhancing everything
from the booking experience to

Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath Robotic Process customer service support. This
in turn leads to greater employee
Automation satisfaction, resulting in more pro-
Q&A ductive staff who deliver a higher
return.

AAA: How developed is RPA
within the airline industry?
RPA as a technology is still very
young and is growing rapidly. RPA
as an industry has grown con-
siderably and is expected to be
worth $USD5 billion by 2024, at a
growth rate of over 33.3 per cent
per year (2017-2023).
At present, the finance sector
has been a quick adopter of this
technology. Like financial institu-
tions, most airline companies face
similar predicaments of legacy
IT systems and high volumes of
transactions. As such, I believe
With the growing application The RPA robots can automate airlines will soon begin adopting
of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and process activities and tasks by RPA, especially when they realise
its ability to handle much larger literally mimicking the actions the vast array of benefits it reaps.
amounts of unstructured data, and rules-based decisions taken For instance, the use of outdated
customer experience is only by employees as they manually and inefficient IT systems that
expected to rapidly improve. execute process steps. stifle growth and restrict innova-
RPA is very relevant to the air- tion, is one major challenge that
The collaboration between line industry. Currently, with more RPA can help overcome.
Robotics Process Automation than 90 per cent of a plane’s flight
(RPA) and AI, also known as being operated by a computer, AAA: Can you provide any use
intelligent automation, is bound the future only entails even more cases?
to create an even more person- back-end office tasks to be carried UiPath is currently working with
alised travel experience, says out by machines. RPA possesses large and small airlines around the
Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath the ability to automate many oper- world, including Lufthansa.
Robotic Process Automation ational functions, including fare
in an interview to Jay Menon, auditing and passenger data val- AAA: What type of airlines is
Deputy Editor of Asian Airlines idation checks. It also improves RPA most suited to - Traditional
and Aerospace. Excerpts from the airline manufacturing supply vs. low cost?
the interview: chain, automating labour- and The RPA solution is suitable for
time-intensive processes such as any organisation that contains
AAA: What is RPA and what is its procurement, inventory manage- large volumes of data entry and
relevance to the airline industry? ment and payment processing. switching among various appli-
Robotics Process Automation Most importantly, the benefits cations and is not restricted to
(RPA) is software robots that of RPA compound as employ- any one type of airline carrier.
can perform a multitude of tasks ees are freed from the burden It serves to automate a specific
that are usually executed by of monotonous manual work and task, especially one that is repet
employees on their desktops. can focus on high-value tasks

38 | March/April 2018 www.GBP.com.sg/AAA