A Framework of Cost Drivers for Robotic Process Automation Projects

• Published in: Business Process Management: Blockchain and Robotic Process Automation Forum Vol. 428; pp. 7 - 22
• Main Authors: Axmann, Bernhard, Harmoko, Harmoko, Herm, Lukas-Valentin, Janiesch, Christian
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2021; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
• Subjects: Cost drivers; Framework; Literature review; Robotic process automation
• ISBN: 9783030858667; 3030858669
• ISSN: 1865-1348; 1865-1356
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-85867-4_2

Robotic process automation is a technology to imitate human behavior when interacting with computers to perform digitized tasks manually, such as opening and closing applications, reading documents, entering data, and sending e-mails. As with any new technology, estimating the costs and break-even of robotic process automation projects is challenging. Currently, in practice, there are no dedicated guidelines for defining cost components in those projects that go beyond simple comparison with person-hours and salary cost. To address this gap, we review literature on the cost of robotic process automation projects to collect and structure those cost drivers that can be generalized. We categorize and prioritize them and derive a novel cost framework specifically for the cost estimation of robotic process automation projects. The framework comprises three cost calculation perspectives for three distinct project scopes hosting eleven cost drivers in the three categories development, investment, and operation. We illustrate the framework in a robotic process automation use case to demonstrate its usefulness.