  One of the more prominent trends within Industry 4.0 is the drive to employ
Robotic Process Automation (RPA), especially as one of the elements of the Lean
approach. The full implementation of RPA is riddled with challenges relating
both to the reality of everyday business operations, from SMEs to SSCs and
beyond, and the social effects of the changing job market. To successfully
address these points there is a need to develop a solution that would adjust to
the existing business operations and at the same time lower the negative social
impact of the automation process.
  To achieve these goals we propose a hybrid, human-centered approach to the
development of software robots. This design and implementation method combines
the Living Lab approach with empowerment through participatory design to
kick-start the co-development and co-maintenance of hybrid software robots
which, supported by variety of AI methods and tools, including interactive and
collaborative ML in the cloud, transform menial job posts into higher-skilled
positions, allowing former employees to stay on as robot co-designers and
maintainers, i.e. as co-programmers who supervise the machine learning
processes with the use of tailored high-level RPA Domain Specific Languages
(DSLs) to adjust the functioning of the robots and maintain operational
flexibility.
