IPA IP 2024 Question 16

A question IPA Japan published in 令和6年度 ITパスポート試験公開問題問16, translated into English. ITPEC is based on the same exams.

Which of the following is the most appropriate work to which RPA can be applied?

a)Work in which a game software vendor automatically improves the programs of game softwareb)In the settlement of employees’ transportation expenses, work of creating settlement slips from the information on the sections of transportation used and receipt datac)At a food processing factory, work of automatically manufacturing frozen foods by using industrial robotsd)In the mail-order business, work of finding new rules about customers’ purchasing behavior from an enormous amount of customers’ purchase data

Explanation

Creating transportation expense slips from route information and receipt data — routine, rule-based office work on a PC is what RPA automates.

RPA (Robotic Process Automation) is software, a “software robot”, that repeats the operations a person performs on a PC screen: opening systems and files, copying data, entering it into forms and saving the result. It suits work whose steps and rules are fixed and whose data is already electronic. Settling transportation expenses is such work: the route taken and the receipt data are read and the settlement slip is filled in by the same rules every time.

Answer (b)

Why not others:

•(a) — RPA carries out the steps people define; improving a program by itself is not what it does
•(c) — industrial robots making products in a factory are physical machines in factory automation; RPA has no physical body and works only on a computer
•(d) — finding new, unknown rules in large volumes of purchase data is data mining with statistics or AI; RPA follows rules, it does not discover them

Key rule: RPA automates fixed, repetitive PC operations in office work; discovering patterns is data mining or AI, and physical production is the work of industrial robots.

Business Industry · AI-written, may contain errors

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This question comes from the past questions IPA Japan publishes, translated into English by ITPEC Practice. ITPEC Practice is an independent study tool and is not affiliated with IPA or ITPEC. See the original paper (PDF) or Report an issue.