Ricerc@Sapienza

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a fast-emerging automation technology in the field of Artificial Intelligence that allows organizations to automate high volume routines. RPA tools are able to capture the execution of such routines previously performed by a human user on the interface of a computer system, and then emulate their enactment in place of the user. In this paper, after an in-depth experimentation of the RPA tools available in the market, we developed a classification framework to categorize them on the basis of some key dimensions.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a fast-emerging automation technology
that sits between the fields of Business Process Management (BPM) and
Artificial Intelligence (AI), and allows organizations to automate high volume
routines. RPA tools are able to capture the execution of such routines
previously performed by a human users on the interface of a computer system,
and then emulate their enactment in place of the user by means of a software
robot. Nowadays, in the BPM domain, only simple, predictable business processes

Business Process Management (BPM) is a central element of today’s organizations. Over the years, its main focus has been the support of business processes (BPs) in highly controlled domains. However—in the current era of Big Data and Internet-of-Things—several real-world domains are becoming cyber-physical (e.g., consider the shift from traditional manufacturing to Industry 4.0), characterized by ever-changing requirements, unpredictable environments and increasing amounts of data and events that influence the enactment of BPs.

Blockchain technology provides basic building blocks to support the execution of collaborative business processes involving mutually untrusted parties in a decentralized environment. Several research proposals have demonstrated the feasibility of designing blockchain-based collaborative business processes using a high-level notation, such as the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), and thereon automatically generating the code artifacts required to execute these processes on a blockchain platform.

The Best BPM Dissertation Award demonstrates the excellence and innovative power of young BPM researchers. Eligible as candidates have been all dissertations that have been officially completed after 01 January 2019. The winner receives the award at the BPM Conference 2020 in Sevilla, Spain. The award is connected with a prize of EUR 1,000 and a free registration for the conference. The winner is also offered the option to publish the dissertation thesis in Springer’s LNBIP series.

The ability to enable a tamper-proof distribution of immutable data has boosted the studies around the adoption of blockchains also in Business Process Management. In this direction, current research work primarily focuses on blockchain-based business process design, or on execution engines able to enact processes through smart contracts. Although very relevant, less studies have been devoted so far on how the adoption of blockchains can be beneficial to business process monitoring.