Process Mining in Action: A Review

Reviewing Lars Reinkemeyer’s Book on Principles, Users Cases and Outlook on Process Mining

Overview and Background

Process mining is a technique that combines data science, business process management, and artificial intelligence to provide insights and solutions for complex business processes. Much has been written about “how to technically implement”, but the more interesting piece is “how to realize value.”  Process mining can help identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, deviations, compliance issues, which is why this work to generate insights matters. 

Process mining is a strategic approach that requires a clear vision, a strong governance, and a collaborative culture. In his book, Process Mining in Action, Lars Reinkemeyer, a leading expert and practitioner of process mining, shares his extensive experience and knowledge from working with process mining in various industries and domains, such as manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, finance, and IT. He also presents real-life case studies and best practices from leading organizations, such as Siemens, ABB, Celonis, and others.

Main Insights from the Book

Impacted Stakeholder Buy-In

Process Mining is a novel and emerging technology that can help organizations discover, monitor, and improve their business processes. However, to successfully implement Process Mining, it is not enough to have the right tools and data. It is also crucial to have the support and collaboration of the people who are involved in the processes. 

“While innovative IT tools can be a great enabler, it is a key success factor to get the right people on board. All smart data, insights, and transparency will be useless if the process experts or process owners do not appreciate and support the approach. Similar to applying MRT technology (MRI), the affected people must be determined to pursue a therapy and strive for improvement. The process owner must be seeking digital transformation or process improvements and actively support the usage of Process Mining.”

Opportunities of Technological Change

Technological change is often seen as a disruptive force that threatens to replace human workers with machines. However, this perspective overlooks the potential benefits and opportunities that technology can bring for enhancing skills and creating new roles. 

“While technological change is often perceived as a threat, it can also be an opportunity for new skills and roles. Many of the roles described … led to new types of experts, both in business and IT. Harvard Business Review has, e.g., coined the role of "analytics translators" who bridge the gap from technical realms of data engineers and scientists to the people from the business realm—procurement, supply chain, manufacturing, sales, finance, etc. This kind of competency is of increasing value and offers new opportunities. As a general trend, the automation of work is continuously progressing and part of the economic evolution. At the same time, it goes against human nature to work on monotonous tasks, and robots take over repetitive or mundane work, while leaving opportunities for new tasks and skilled workers.”

A Transatlantic Divide

Process Mining and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) are two technologies that aim to improve business processes by analyzing and automating them. However, their perception and adoption vary significantly across the Atlantic in terms of business adoption, management styles and cultural beliefs. European companies tend to value both technologies equally, while American companies favor RPA over Process Mining. 

This discrepancy might be due to the different levels of maturity and awareness of Process Mining in these two markets. A survey conducted by the Process Mining Group in 2020 found that 58% of the European respondents had a high or very high level of Process Mining maturity, compared to only 39% of the American respondents. Similarly, 52% of the European respondents reported a high or very high level of Process Mining awareness in their organizations, compared to only 35% of the American respondents. These results indicate that Process Mining has a stronger foothold and recognition in Europe than in the US. 

Remaining Humble, Process Improvement Takes Time

This might be my favorite take away!  Satisfaction = Results – Expectations is a framework for how we should look at things from a broader perspective. Acknowledge the factors that contributed to the success of the project, such as having a strategy, learning from trial and error, and having some luck. However, not everything will work, and people should stay humble and not overestimate the role of strategy or underestimate the role of hard work. Satisfaction should be based on the results achieved and expectations, which were realistic and flexible as more was learned throughout a project.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Process Mining in Action is a valuable and insightful resource for anyone who wants to learn more about process mining and those who have practical experience.  It can be a bit of a technical read, but that is to be somewhat expected as this covers both technical and business application of key concepts. 

As Reinkemeyer writes in his book, "Process Mining is not a silver bullet, but a powerful enabler to achieve process excellence and digital transformation."  As such, I hope this article gave you further ideas on how to improve your implementations and value realization work.