How Execution Management helps operationalize and advance sustainability
Execution Management focuses on creating a systematic way to understand, refactor, and optimize processes. Early victories focus on cost savings and productivity but by adding more data to track new kinds of activity, Execution Management can also optimize processes to improve sustainability outcomes.
Think of it this way: Process optimization usually takes place within the context of the familiar tradeoffs making something good, as fast as possible, and with minimum resources. Often people say you must pick two of these measures and do worse on the third.
Execution Management helps overcome this zero sum game, enables progress on all three dimensions, and adds sustainability as a fourth dimension. By adding information about sustainability impact, it is possible to achieve victories that make products and services better, faster, cheaper, and more sustainable.
Here’s a play-by-play look at how Execution Management brings the power of Process Mining to sustainability programs.
- In the typical Process Mining project the event log is analyzed so that the “as is” process can be understood.
- Sources of variation or waste are then targeted for redesign and metrics are developed to show problems as early as possible.
- External data about suppliers and distributors can be added into the process metrics. These ratings can encourage selection of high-performing partners, but also improve engagement with existing partners to encourage better performance.
- The Process Query Language (PQL) can define new metrics that track activity associated with sustainability. This transparency can be used to identify opportunities for improvement.
- The transparency shows where the biggest gains in sustainability can be achieved. Typically, processes like procurement have lots of low hanging fruit because of the wide variation on the sustainability performance across suppliers and other gaps that become visible.
- Finally, automation can be applied to decisions related to sustainability such as considering changing suppliers to improve the sustainability of the entire value chain.
The data-based approach and the ability to permanently affect processes allows Execution Management to make sustainability a part of day-to-day operations.