Mechanical Technology June 2015

⎪ Robotics, automation and mechatronics ⎪

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 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

E 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

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

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

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.

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. q

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-

Mechanical Technology — June 2015

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