Process Mining is currently one of the hottest topics in the business world. Companies like Siemens, Lufthansa or BMW use the technology to turn their processes (once just a construct designed on paper), into an open book. By creating an X-ray of their business operations, the technology provides the much-needed insights to eliminate bottlenecks, drive transformation and achieve better business results.
But how do you get started with Process Mining? What are the most promising use cases? And what challenges do you need to be ready to tackle when deploying and scaling up Process Mining across departments?
All questions that Lars Reinkemeyer, one of the leading minds in Process Mining, answers in his new book Process Mining in Action.
The former head of Process Mining at Siemens and now Guest Lecturer at UCSB & Stanford GSB talked to Process Mining evangelists at companies like BMW, Bosch, Siemens, Bayer, and Uber. Giving not only an overview of success stories across industries, but also tackling the challenges Process Mining practitioners faced, this book is one of the first practical Process Mining guides written by practitioners for practitioners.
Lars Reinkemeyer will be one of the thought leaders speaking at Celosphere Live, the world’s number one virtual Process Mining event held by Celonis. At the event, he will talk about principles and key learnings and provide an overview of successful use cases.
We took the time to ask Lars Reinkemeyer about this book, why Process Mining is a key tool for successful business transformation, and where both companies and the technology will go next.
Process Mining has seen a tremendous spike during the last couple of years. Invented by Wil van der Aalst late last millennium, it has become a rapidly growing and widely spread topic in academic research and teaching. In the corporate environment, this innovative technology has been continuously optimized for operational requirements and has seen a steep growth during the last 10 years.
Today, awareness about the impact of Process Mining is particularly high in Europe, with a large number of companies applying it in single use cases, some of them even applying it with multiple use cases across their whole value chain. The book provides an overview how it is applied across different industries, countries and operational functions.
I think an open knowledge exchange between early adopters and software vendors is beneficial for all parties. It is this exchange that has allowed for turning this emerging technology into valuable tools for operational business. I wanted to further foster knowledge about the topic, exchange experiences from proven use cases and stimulate an open discussion about future potentials of Process Mining.
The more people get involved in this exchange, the more use cases and innovations we will see. And the book provides a great stage for the corporate evangelists, who drive the topic in their respective organizations.
Luckily, several of the contributors had already previously been involved in regular exchanges to share use cases and experiences, and also to discuss industry requirements for software development. All of the contributors share this spirit of mutual benefit, resulting from an open exchange and deserve a great acknowledgement for getting on board.
But yes, there have also been a couple of companies, where evangelists wanted to contribute exciting use cases, but were held back by corporate restrictions.
During all the talks I enjoyed the spirit of open knowledge sharing and collaboration. Some of the contributors are true innovators, applying a new technology in a very particular and challenging environment. I am very grateful that they so openly shared their cases, experiences, challenges and even failures.
Everybody who is interested in understanding how technology can support Process Excellence and digital transformation should attend these kinds of events. And in the current situation, I believe this can be more inspirational than ever.
Digital Transformation is a key driver for today’s business. Transparency is a prerequisite, which can be achieved with Process Mining. Understanding actual processes in sales, manufacturing, procurement etc. allows for sustainable efficiency improvement, driving transformation and creating value. The use cases presented in the book represent some exciting examples for impact across the value chain.
All these samples and more are discussed in much more detail in the respective use cases of the book.
Business Transformation is a topic widely discussed, but many programs face a key challenge: how do you manage what you can’t measure? Process Mining essentially provides an X-ray of the organization and provides full transparency on current process efficiency, areas where improvement is required and allows to identify potentials for automation and continuously track progress.
Leveraging today’s power of big data, unbiased insights can be provided for all levels of an organization. Joint definitions of actions and progress tracking becomes possible based on one single source of truth and helps to break down organizational silos. Applying this digital technology enables organizations to transform their operations towards digital optimization.
