Revolutionizing Workflows with Process Digital Twins: A Comprehensive Guide

Understanding the Difference Between Digital Twins and Simulations

Many businesses fall victim to a shadowy – often invisible – enemy: process inefficiency. The signs? Leaking revenue and ballooning costs, cycle times ambushed by delays or service errors, and damage to customer and supplier relationships. Thankfully, businesses have a superhero to call upon – it’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, it’s process digital twins.

As the name suggests, process digital twins (sometimes shortened to process twins) are a type of digital twin technology. Instead of simulating a product, piece of equipment or physical object, however, a process digital twin is a live, virtual replica of a business operation and all the workflows within it, such as creating and sending an invoice, or billing an order.

As with most digital twins, the virtual representation is connected to real time data relayed from the counterpart (the business’s source systems in this case, as opposed to physical sensors), which means it stays up to date with business change. The primary benefit (we explore them all in more detail in this article) is that a process digital twin enables continuous, data-backed and real time monitoring, modeling, and analysis – as opposed to the theoretical insights you might gain from a standard simulation.

So, what superpowers do process digital twins lend businesses for optimizing processes and achieving operational excellence? Here are five major value-driving examples.

Pow! Unblock bottlenecks

A workflow can slow down in all sorts of critical places – from the approval of a payment to receiving materials from a supplier and shipping a finished product. A business might be able to see a process is running slowly, but it’s not always obvious exactly where the congestion lies.

With a process digital twin on hand, however, a business gains full visibility of how its workflows are running and where those pesky pinchpoints exist. This capability then enables the business to take precise action to remedy the root cause, preventing any mishaps where a process is unnecessarily altered in the wrong area. Better still, businesses can continuously monitor process performance through the digital twin, checking whether their remedial action has proved effective or if more is required.

In a nutshell: Process digital twins help keep orders moving and cash flowing by pinpointing tasks and process areas that can be unblocked and accelerated.

Wham! Minimize disruption

Business continuity is one of the most fundamental objectives for any organization. But it can be sideswiped by external factors (think of the recent geopolitical conflict limiting access to the Suez Canal, for example) or internal failures (such as a machine malfunctioning). A process digital twin can help manage both.

First there’s predictive maintenance. A process digital twin enables a business to assess the impact of replacing a piece of equipment or temporarily switching a system offline for an upgrade – crucially, without affecting anything in real life. This means it can find the least disruptive process for maintenance activity, while taking into account all interconnected processes across the business so there’s no unforeseen knock-on. For manufacturers alone, relying more heavily on predictive maintenance than preventive maintenance can reduce equipment defects by 87% and machine downtime by 30-50%.

The same is true of system migrations. Having end-to-end process transparency with a live process digital twin means businesses can not only gauge when a system needs upgrading by drilling down into performance data across the network. They can also establish the optimum time and process for implementing it, simulated safely within the virtual replica.

A process digital twin is also a valuable sidekick when it comes to modeling different scenarios of external disruption. A business can plan and prepare for the impact of sudden outages and volatility. Taking supply chains as an example, a company can map out an alternative process for sourcing materials if their current supplier is suddenly unable to fulfil a purchase order.

In a nutshell: Process digital twins can increase business resilience by continuously monitoring performance, regularly stress-testing workflows, and exploring back-up plans.

Kaboom! Streamline duplication and complexity

Blindspots can easily creep into business processes when a company doesn’t have the transparency of a process digital twin. One of the most costly and wasteful symptoms is duplicated tasks and processes.

When businesses become siloed and lack shared process understanding, teams and departments can repeat tasks such as sending invoices or payments. A process digital twin can laser in on these inefficiencies by uncovering them with a live, end-to-end virtual model. Businesses can use this to pinpoint common occurrences and straighten out roles and responsibilities of teams and functions.

Find out more about how our Duplicate Checker App prevents duplicate payments

It’s not just outright duplication, either. Any areas of inefficiency causing slow-moving inventory are also surfaced in the virtual model, while businesses can prioritize orders accordingly to mitigate any delays for customers.

In a nutshell: A process digital twin exposes overly complex or duplicate processes, so businesses can effectively simplify them and accelerate cycle times.

Zap! Target underperforming suppliers

A process digital twin leaves underperforming suppliers with nowhere to hide. Businesses can efficiently assess the impact of different vendors on the procurement and supply chain process, such as slow lead times and where excess supply is accumulating. But they can also use a process digital twin to model potential improvements by using alternative suppliers.

This can help businesses drive sustainability goals, save costs and cut cycle times. The process model illustrates in real time the upstream and downstream impact of materials on key performance indicators like supplier reliability and service levels. The business can then use these insights to negotiate contracts and enhance supplier relationships by helping them improve their performance.

In a nutshell: A process digital twin provides live, end-to-end visibility of supplier performance, as well as a model for simulating and evaluating the impact of using alternative vendors.

Bam! Combat non-compliance

It can be tricky enough to design an improved process. But implementing and enforcing an ideal process and eliminating deviation can be harder still.

In many industries, such as banking and healthcare, the consequences of non-compliance are more than just waste and delays. Deviating from regulations can incur fines and reputational harm.

Process digital twins help by supporting continuous, real time monitoring of process adherence. Businesses can clearly see not only which processes aren’t being correctly followed, but in what places and in what ways. This provides a much more detailed understanding of non-compliance for the business to act on, ensuring corrective action is more effective. It’s the difference between finding an unwanted purchase order, for example, versus knowing whether approval was missed, it was inappropriately authorized, or inadvertently duplicated.

In a nutshell: Businesses can promote and embed collective process understanding with a digital twin solution that all teams can use as a central, standardized guideline for executing a particular process.

Process digital twins that wear a Celonis cape

A business might be ready to send out the Bat Signal for its own process digital twin solution – but the most accurate models need access to business context and real time data. Without that, the virtual representation becomes no more accurate and reliable than a standard simulation.

Celonis helps businesses create a digital twin of their processes with the Process Intelligence Platform. The solution uses process mining to extract data from your source systems and standardized process knowledge combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to construct a real-time model of your actual processes. It’s a formidable ally in capturing all the opportunities for tangible process improvement value hiding within your processes.

Talk to us to discuss how process digital twins could revolutionize your business processes.