Importance of intelligent automation in post COVID Era: A study

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has created a huge disturbance in Supply chain management (SCM) all over the globe. Especially the manufacturing and demand-supply pattern of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) got affected very badly. For uninterrupted production and SCM in such scenario, Intelligent Automation (IA) may be used as a futuristic tool by SMEs. The purpose of this paper is to study the importance of intelligent automation in COVID-19 shadow by literature review and case study. In this study we have observed that many authors have stressed on importance of automation but SMEs lack knowledge on intelligent automation. SMEs have intention to adopt IA, but there have been research gaps in implementing IA and the impact of COVID. Automation can be adopted in phased manner. This paper explores the impact of IA in manufacturing sector especially SMEs. The findings of this study will make an impact on adapting IA in multi sectors SMEs.