Let’s start with the obvious. For any company trying to get a handle on its process landscape, process mining software offers a huge advantage.
Mining can help companies answer key questions about their systems and operations. It helps leaders understand how their business works so they can improve day-to-day operations. This saves time and money, increases efficiency, and helps the company achieve ambitious projects and deadlines.
It’s no surprise that many companies are joining the process mining trend. They use it to explore everything from payments and customer relationship management to order fulfillment and production.
But a central question often gets lost in these attempts to optimize processes: what does the ideal version of this process actually look like?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s look at the benefits.
Why mine processes in the first place?
Here’s what process mining can do for a business:
By collecting log data from different systems involved in your business processes, mining sheds light on the steps in a process. It can then, for example, highlight inefficiencies or find areas where automation may be a good choice.
In short, mining tells you what’s going on right now and what different employees or departments in the company are doing.
Great, so I’ve got the data extracted. What else?
Here’s what mining can’t do:
It cannot fully enable an environment of continuous process refinement and improvement. You can get transparency into your process landscape, allowing you to find opportunities for optimization. But transparency alone can’t tell you if your optimization ideas will actually translate into a beneficial outcome.
In other words, you can analyze your process and then make changes based on what you think will improve performance and results, but the actual outcome could be different. The way the process is going now could be even worse. Especially if there were assumptions that weren’t factored into your changes.
And there’s another problem. Process mining technologies examine your systems, explore data, and help you identify where things are wrong. But they do so without ever stopping to provide a plan for how they should be done right in the first place.
To really know if you’re getting information from all the necessary systems and steps, you first need to have an overview of your process – a process map that specifies what the process is supposed to accomplish and how.
Obtaining this map requires another feature of your process mining solution: process design.
Optimization through process design
The iGrafx process design solution provides a single point of truth on how processes should work, as well as a place to build the ideal version of each process. You may hear about this feature elsewhere as process mapping or modeling.
In the case of iGrafx, however, the functionality extends far beyond just a schematic representation of how a process works. The design space is also a repository of process information. It shows exactly which systems, employees, and resources are involved in the different steps of each process and provides a record of current and past versions of the processes. This makes it incredibly simple to compare your current state with what you’ve done before.
It is important to note that the processes mapped during the process design are also always presented in the form of easy-to-interpret graphs. This opens up the design space, moving away from the results of process mining that only analysts and engineers can understand, and moving towards true process democratization.
People who use the processes on a daily basis can now easily see and understand the changes being made, allowing the company’s leadership to draw on the expertise of more of the company’s workforce.
Risk & Compliance
Process design adds even more value if a company’s operations involve a high level of compliance and risk management. For example, a company working in the financial sector should generally ensure that specific steps in a process take place before others, in order to avoid mistakes with financial or even legal consequences.
Using the design, the processes in question can be mapped to ensure that the necessary steps are completed before the others.
The process map can also be used as a reference point for future extracted data, to ensure that what is being done continues to meet compliance standards by following the path mapped out during design. It also means that it’s much easier for that company to prove to auditors later that they’ve ticked all the right boxes.
Process simulation and the synergy between process mining and design
In addition to the design part, a few more tools are needed in the mining tool belt. Principals can simulate process outcomes, monitor live processes, and predict how a given process will flow.
With simulation in particular, the process design solution becomes a real testing ground.
Before a new version of a process goes live, it can be tested, refined, and iterated until the best possible version is discovered. Simulation identifies positive and negative consequences of making a proposed change, uncovering new bottlenecks it may create. This makes it much simpler to answer the question, « Will this process work as intended? »
It also makes it possible to arrive at a version of the process that works best for the business more quickly and cost-effectively. Then, once the process goes live, real-time monitoring helps ensure that the process doesn’t change unexpectedly over time.
Add predictive analytics to that, and you have the full package. The company can now determine how processes are likely to unfold and address potential issues before they manifest as actual problems.
Supported by these additional capabilities, process design and exploration become a synergistic whole. They allow companies to combine information with action, continuously improve and iterate on their processes to get the most out of them and make the most of them.
Achieve true process optimization
For most companies looking to optimize their process environment, the above features won’t be « add-ons. » These are the essential components of a comprehensive process management solution that can enable business management to make continuous improvements.
Achieving true process excellence requires the adaptability introduced by process design and the rapid iterative capabilities of simulation. This means being able to pivot and evolve as needed and proactively control the outcomes of business processes.
Most importantly, it means moving away from the idea that process mining alone holds all the answers. There’s no denying the value that process mining brings to the business landscape. But it’s still just one tool in the toolbelt.
To learn more about how the iGrafx Process360 Live platform combines process mining, process design, predictive analytics, and simulation, visit our website.