Call for RPA Forum

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a new technology, which is already widely being applied in practice. In essence, it relates to software agents called ‘bots’ that mimic how humans use computer applications when performing certain tasks in a business process. The tasks that bots perform are typically rule-based, well structured, and repetitive. Examples of tasks that bots perform include data transfer between applications through screen scraping, automated email query processing, and collation of payroll data from different sources.

RPA is drastically more than just a technological innovation. It enables a digital taskforce and, what is more important, a control mechanism over it. The objective for RPA also extends beyond cutting costs; it directly addresses the digital transformation of companies by creating new value, improving the quality of services and products, reducing and controlling takt times, and improving work satisfaction by liberating employees from repetitive and tedious tasks. Moreover, RPA has a generative capacity when combined with technologies such as OCR, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, among others, creating new ‘smart’ automation tools.

The capabilities and opportunities of RPA challenge a broad set of research communities. Computer scientists are attracted to its various technical aspects, while economists study the impact of RPA on labor and organizational effectiveness. Scholars in the field of information systems are drawn to the question of how to manage the interaction between people and software. Another question is how RPA fits within a corporate program of digital innovation. Finally, RPA has social implications since it may reduce work opportunities for those people who are carrying out simple, manual work.

This forum aims to bring together researchers from various communities and disciplines to discuss challenges, opportunities, and new ideas that relate to RPA and its application to business processes in private and public sectors. It is a unique setting where technical, business-oriented, and human-centered perspectives will come together. The forum will incorporate an exciting keynote, presentations of research papers, and a panel discussion.

Topics

The forum solicits contributions related to RPA including, but not limited, to the following topics:

RPA uses cases

• Organizational expectations for RPA
• Lessons learned from RPA adoptions
• Digital transformation through RPA
• New work practices and RPA

Impact of RPA

• Social impact of RPA
• Evolution of working environments for RPA
• Economical impact of RPA
• Organizational impact of RPA
• Changes on business models for RPA
• Legal impact of RPA

RPA support

• Viability assessment methods for RPA projects
• Benchmarking RPA
• Monitoring and auditing robots
• Governance of RPA
• RPA architectures
• RPA platforms
• RPA standardization

RPA future

• Artificial Intelligence and RPA
• Collaborative RPA, e.g., chatbots
• RPA future value creation potential
• RPA and datafication
• Novel paradigms for RPA design
• Novel paradigms for RPA developments
• Novel paradigms for RPA deployments
• Novel paradigms for RPA testing
• Novel paradigms for RPA control and operation
• Generativity of RPA / RPA-based innovation

Paper submissions

Prospective authors are invited to submit original, unpublished papers on any of the topics of the forum. Papers must be written in English and must not simultaneously be submitted to another journal or conference. The maximum length of the paper is 15 pages. Shorter papers are explicitly welcomed.

Submissions must be prepared according to the format of Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP) specified by Springer. The title page must contain a short abstract and a list of keywords, preferably taking inspiration from the list of topics given above. Papers must be submitted electronically via EasyChair.

Important Dates

• Abstract submission: 24 May 2020
• Paper submission: 31 May 2020 7 June 2020 (extended)
• Notification: 8 July 2020
• Camera-ready submission: 16 July 2020
• Forum: 15-17 September 2020

Chairs

• Aleksandre Asatiani, University of Gothenburg
• Nina Helander, Tampere University
• Andrés Jiménez Ramírez, University of Sevilla
• Hajo Reijers, Utrecht University

PC members

• Sorin Anagnoste, Bucharest University of Economic Studies
• Hyerim Bae, Pusan National University
• Christian Czarnecki, University of Applied Sciences Hamm-Lippstadt
• Carmelo del Valle Sevillano, University of Sevilla
• F. José Domínguez Mayo, University of Sevilla
• Amador Durán Toro, University of Sevilla
• María J. Escalona Cuaresma, University of Sevilla
• Michael Fellmann, Uni Rostock
• Peter Fettke, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Saarland University
• José González Enríquez, University of Sevilla
• Florian Imgrund, Digital&
• Hannu Jaakkola, Tampere University
• Christian Janiesch, Technische Universität Dresden
• Jari Jussila, Häme University of Applied Sciences
• Mathias Kirchmer, BPM-D
• Agnes Koschmider, Kiel University
• Tommi Mikkonen, University of Helsinki
• Esko Penttinen, Aalto University, Finland
• Artem Polyvyanyy, The University of Melbourne
• Milla Ratia, Tampere University
• Manfred Reichert, University of Ulm
• Minseok Song, Pohang University of Science and Technology
• Rehan Syed, Queensland University of Technology
• Inge van de Weerd, Utrecht University
• Judith Wewerka, BMW

Keynote

The Forum will count with the presence of a distinguished keynote speaker, Moe Wynn (Queensland University of Technology).

Journal invitation

Authors of a selection of the accepted papers will receive an invitation to submit to the Special Issue on RPA in Computers in Industry