Mechanical Technology June 2015

Mechanical Technology — June 2015

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Robotics, automation and mechatronics

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mbracing IT automation at the

core of business operations is

critical for companies looking to

innovate, transform, and com-

pete in ever more demanding markets.

With many large enterprises’ IT environ-

ments increasing in complexity, the idea

of clinging to manual static processes

that require constant human intervention

and maintenance is not a viable solution

for the future. Next-generation automa-

tion tools essentially make it simpler to

maintain and evolve the organisation’s IT

estate via sophisticated self-learning and

self-healing systems.

The trend of recent years towards

cloud-centric and on-demand models of

IT provisioning, helps to pave the way for

more efficient and more automated inte-

gration between systems. It is against this

backdrop that the benefits of widespread

automation start to become possible.

Intelligent automation – in other

words, the combination of artificial intel-

ligence and automation – allows entire

systems and processes to work flawlessly

without the need for human intervention.

This is truly a paradigm shift from reme-

dial, manual infrastructure management

to a proactive, automated management

strategy via predictive analytics and self-

healing mechanisms. But perhaps most

valuably, as core functions start working

autonomously, human capital resources

are freed up to focus on higher-value,

more strategic IT initiatives. Greater

levels of automation help in getting rid

of redundant tasks to make this possible.

This re-deployment of skills and

resources often means energy can be

diverted to other areas of the business

– such as research and development,

innovation or new ventures. The result

is often greater levels of agility and en-

hanced delivery of products and services

to customers.

Innovation benefits

Widespread automation across the IT

estate also enables the organisation to

more easily connect new systems to

In this article, Shailendra Singh, business

director, Africa, Wipro (left) discusses the

effect that IT automation and the ‘Internet

of Things’ is likely to have on businesses

of the future.

IT automation unlocks innovation

the core enterprise architecture. These

could be within the enterprise and

also between the partner companies,

broader ecosystems and industry value

chains. Extending this concept further,

automation can allow organisations to

tap into even more extendable innova-

tion networks by easily connecting to

partners, customers and ideas generators

across multiple platforms. For example,

a Canadian mining company exposed

certain of its geological surveys and

invited innovations to develop modelling

software that would identify the best

areas to mine. This open-innovation,

crowd-sourcing initiative yielded profit-

able results for both the mining company

and its innovation partner.

In fact, as the concept of the ‘Internet

of Things’ gains momentum, automa-

tion will assist companies in seamlessly

connecting any number of

connected devices and sen-

sors – with the potential

to generate new business

models and innovation op-

portunities. In this new era,

we will start to see everything

from self-driving cars, to vir-

tual customer assistants and

advanced robots with self-

learning abilities – all entering

the commercial space and

starting to impact business

and create new innovation

opportunities.

According to the forecasts

of research giant Gartner,

this era of smart machines is

likely to be the most disrup-

tive in the history of IT.

IT automation also brings

greater efficiency. Clients

realise huge cost savings on

maintenance when shifting to

automated managed services

models. These savings in the

back-end allow funds to be re-

diverted to innovation efforts

at the front-end. Furthermore,

automated and software-

defined environments give organisations

the flexibility they need to succeed in a

digitised world. Agile programming of

the applications and infrastructure is

essential in creating a dynamic models

where new ideas can be quickly tested –

either to be discarded or further explored

and potentially

commercialised.

As organisa-

tions gain aware-

ness of the bene-

fits of automation

in the early stage

of the automation

maturity cycle,

the focus starts

to shift to new in-

novations that al-

low the company

to reach higher

levels of automation maturity. In many

different ways, IT automation is the key

that unlocks a company’s innovation

strategy – allowing them to be more

competitive while improving productivity,

efficiency and, ultimately, the delivery of

products and services.

Intelligent

automation – in

other words, the

combination of

artificial intelligence

and automation

– allows entire

systems and

processes to work

flawlessly without

the need for human

intervention.