By Chris Godden, Senior Solutions Engineer, Apromore
Process improvement is a critical aspect of business operations, and many organizations have embraced the Lean Six Sigma methodology to achieve operational excellence. Apromore is a powerful process mining solution that helps practitioners to identify bottlenecks, streamline workflows, and ultimately deliver more value to their customers and shareholders. It is an intuitive, powerful tool that has proven to be the perfect accompaniment to use with the Lean Six Sigma methodology.
Apromore allows organizations to visualize and analyze their business processes. The tool enables users to extract data from a variety of sources, including any transactional systems, audit logs, data warehouses and data lakes. It then uses this data to create visual representations and statistics of the business processes, which can be analyzed to identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement.
The Lean Six Sigma methodology is a structured approach to process improvement that aims to eliminate waste and improve efficiency. It involves five phases: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC). In this blog post, we'll take a look at how this methodology can be used in conjunction with Apromore process mining to achieve process excellence.
The first step in using Apromore to improve processes using Lean Six Sigma is to define the problem. This involves identifying the process that needs to be improved and defining the scope of the project. Despite the common perception that process mining is used to only analyze procure-to-pay or order-to-cash, neither of these processes will likely greatly improve your business. Lean Six Sigma and process mining can be applied to any process, whether customer facing, manufacturing, logistics, sales or internal process like hiring or the before mentioned procurement and order processing.
Apromore is used to measure the performance of the process by extracting data from the various sources and creating visual representations of the process. Using Apromore’s ETL pipeline data from multiple systems and sub-processes can be joined together to create an end-to-end process, thus allowing the scope of the improvement initiative to be quite broad and complexity of the process to be very high.
Apromore also has a built-in process modelling suite. Models can either be created automatically from the process data, imported from legacy modelling solutions using the BPMN 2.0 standard or build from scratch within Apromore. This allows for a combination of data and experience based models to enhance analysis far beyond manual Lean Six Sigma measuring.
Once the process has been measured, the next step is to analyze the data and identify the root causes of the problems. Apromore can be used to analyze the data and identify the causes of inefficiencies and bottlenecks in the process. This can be done using a variety of statistical tools and techniques, including regression analysis, hypothesis testing, control charts as well as using Apromore KPI Center.
The Apromore KPI Center allows users to monitor and analyze key performance indicators (KPIs) in real-time. It provides users with a dashboard that displays KPIs for different processes, which can be customized based on the specific needs of the organization. It allows users to track KPIs such as cycle time, throughput, and other metrics that are critical to the success of Lean Six Sigma initiatives, which is essential for identifying areas of improvement and implementing effective solutions.
When a process is falling behind its KPI targets, you can use Apromore’s root cause analysis to detect and address the bottlenecks, friction points, and sources of waste that are hampering the fulfilment of each KPI. Apromore’s root cause analyzer uses state of the art AI techniques to scour through your business process execution data to find high-quality explanations for KPI violations, which you can connect to concrete improvement opportunities.
With the root causes of the problems identified, the next step is to develop and implement solutions to improve the process. Apromore can be used to simulate the impact of different solutions on the process performance before risking making changes in the real world. This can be done by creating models of the process and testing different “what-if” analysis scenarios to determine the best course of action. This not only allows creative and innovative improvements to be tested risk free but also ensuring that improvements do not cause further problems down the process. This allows for better wholistic improvements to be designed and then implemented.
Once the solutions have been implemented, the final step is to control the process to ensure that the improvements are sustained. This involves monitoring the process performance and implementing controls to prevent the reoccurrence of the problems. Apromore can be used to monitor the process performance and identify any issues that may arise. Also, by using the Apromore KPI Center in conjunction with the Lean Six Sigma methodology, organizations can achieve continuous process improvement and optimize their operations for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.
Apromore now also offers AI driven predictive analytics of live processes. For instance, the length of (cycle time) and outcome of individual cases can be predicted and if necessary, mitigating actions can be taken to ensure as many desired outcomes can be achieved as possible.
Using Apromore process mining with the Lean Six Sigma methodology can lead to significant process improvement. The use of Apromore enables organizations to identify inefficiencies and bottlenecks in their processes, while the Lean Six Sigma methodology provides a structured approach to process improvement. By following the DMAIC approach with Apromore, organizations can ensure that their process improvement efforts are focused and effective.
If you would like to see how Apromore can help you improve your business processes and therefore your business, please contact us.