Development of Evaluation Criteria for Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Solution Selection

When introducing a robotic process automation (RPA) solution for business automation, selecting an RPA solution that is suitable for the automation target and goals is extremely difficult for customers. One reason for this difficulty is that standardised evaluation items and indicators that can support the evaluation of RPA have not been defined. The broad extension of RPA is still in its infancy and only a few studies have been conducted on this subject. In this study, an evaluation breakdown structure for RPA selection was developed by deriving evaluation items from prior studies related to RPA selection and a feasibility study was conducted. Consequently, a questionnaire was administered three times, and the coefficients of variation, content validity, consensus, and convergence of factors and criteria were measured from the survey results. All of these measurement results are reflected in the final suitability value that was calculated to verify the stability of the evaluation system and evaluation criteria indicators. This study is the first to develop an RPA solution selection evaluation standard and the proposed evaluation breakdown structure provides useful evaluation criteria and a checklist for successful RPA application and introduction.