もちろん、DX成功の鍵はひとつだけではありません。しかし、他のあらゆるものが揃ったとしても、これなくしては、DXを着実に推進させ成功に導くことはできないと、確信を持って言えるものがあります。それは、DXを推進する常設の専任部署である「COE（Center of Excellence）」です。特に、DXの取り組みの肝となるビジネスモデル、ビジネスプロセスを変革するためには、BPM（Business Process Management）と呼ばれる、包括的な方法論が有効であることから、BPM-COEと呼ぶ専任チームの立ち上げが重要と考えます。
一方、BPM（Business Process Management）は、ビジネスプロセスを適切に運営するための方法論です。現状（as-is）のプロセスの改善だけでなく、新しいビジネスモデルに基づく、あるべき（to-be）プロセスの設計と展開、安定的運用と継続的な監視までをカバーする包括的なものです。
In this article, I’ll explain the flow of using process mining to improve business processes, contrasting it with the procedure of treatment in a hospital.
Process mining aims to discover various issues and problems hidden in the process by visualizing invisible business processes from the event log data.
In terms of this “visualization of the process”, process mining is often likened to an X-ray. However, just as in the treatment of diseases, the ultimate goal is not the discovery of the lesion (Inefficiencies and bottlenecks) but the implementation of appropriate treatment (improvement measures) and the return to a healthy state, in other words, the realization of an improved “ideal process(to be proess)”.
Let’s start by outlining the flow of medical activities in a hospital. Broadly speaking, there are two stages: the “diagnostic stage” and the “treatment stage”.
●Medical activities
Diagnostic stage
Patient
The starting point for treatment is when a patient comes in with some kind of symptom such as fever or cough.
Preliminaryinterview
First, we will ask questions about the extent of your current symptoms and conduct an interview.
X-rays
Using an X-ray machine, the area where the lesion is thought to exist will be photographed.
x-ray photograph
The presence of the lesion is confirmed by looking at the X-ray photograph.
Diagnosis
From the results of the X-ray photos, you can determine what diseases the patient have.
Physical examination
In addition, various physical exam and tests will be performed to verify the correctness of the above diagnosis.
●Treatment Stage
Treatment policy
The course of treatment is based on the results of the diagnosis and the patient’s wishes. For example, it’s about whether to carry out surgery or how to treat medication.
Surgery
If it is better to remove the lesion, surgery will be performed.
Medication
The treatment is performed by administering medications alone or in conjunction with surgery.
Recovery
The etiology has been eliminated and the symptoms are gone. Treatment is complete.
Next, we’ll outline the steps to improve business processes along the path of diagnosis and treatment at the above hospital.
●Business Process Improvement
Understanding the current situation – Diagnostic stage
Process with problems – Patient
Select processes that are experiencing problems as phenomena, such as long throughput, high operating costs, customer complaints, etc., as targets for improvement.
Process Setup – Preliminary interview
Basic information related to the process to be improved, such as an overview of the process, the number of processes, and the department or person in charge, will be organized through interviews. If there are any specifications or manuals for the system involved in the process, check them as well.
Process Mining – X-ray
Based on the event log data of the process to be improved, we analyze it using a process mining tool and create a flowchart of the current process.
As is process – X-ray photograph
We analyze the current process from various perspectives, such as frequency and time required.
Problem identification – Diagnosis
Based on the results of the above analysis, we identify the areas that are causing problems or issues as a phenomenon, i.e. inefficient procedures that are taking too long, or bottlenecks that are piling up pending cases.
On-site interview and observation – physical examination
To identify the problem areas, we conduct interviews with the person in charge at the site and conduct observational surveys to identify the root cause.
The root causes of process inefficiencies and bottlenecks are: too many meaningless steps, too many mistakes, too many reworkings, and too few people assigned to deals that need to be done.
Improvement Activities – Treatment Stage
Improvement Policy – Treatment Policy
Once we have identified the various problems and issues related to the process and the root causes of these problems and issues, we plan improvement measures.
As a major improvement policy, it is important to first clarify the objectives, such as reducing throughput, reducing costs, and improving customer satisfaction.
Implementation of improvement measures – Surgery and Medication
There are a variety of options for improvement measures, ranging from major to minor modifications.
BPR (Business Process Re-engineering), which is a zero-based re-engineering of the process, can be compared to surgery. Replacing manual tasks with RPA software robots might be like replacing an artificial heart.
If a small change in procedure could improve the time required, it would be a disease that could be treated with simple medication.
Improved Process (To be process) – Recovery
Once the desired process has been achieved as a result of effective improvement measures, the project is complete.
Just as regular check-ups are necessary in the treatment of a disease, it is important to continuously monitor the target process to ensure that problems do not recur or new problems arise.
Thanks to process mining and task mining, you are able to find inefficient processes and bottlenecks in the process. But that’s not where it’s done, is it?
Needless to say, process mining and task mining make it easy to uncover problems through data analysis, but they don’t tell you how you can solve problems. (It’s plausible that in the future, advanced AI capabilities will be added in process mining tools to hint at ways to improve them.
Therefore, once a problem related to the process has been found, the process mining and task mining are no longer needed for the time being.
What comes into play after finding a problem is problem-solving techniques, including Lean Six Sigma. In those problem-solving methods, you can use various frameworks such as 5WHY and factor analysis (fish bone analysis) to find the root cause behind the problem, and then plan and implement specific improvement measures.
This article introduces nine redesign methods that can be used as a reference to consider specific improvement measures. These redesign methods are systematized in BPM (Business Process Management). This is a practical method that has been developed empirically through numerous process improvement projects that have been implemented in the past.
In fact, there are nearly 30 rules of thumb for process redesign. Of these, the nine methods I’m going to share with you are the most common and most likely to produce improvements.
The nine process redesign methods can be broadly categorized into three levels (task level, flow level) and process level). Each method will be explained at each of the three levels.
TASK Level
This is a change of any kind to the individual tasks (activities) that make up the process.
1 Task Elimination
For those tasks that are taking a long time, it’s important to ask yourself if the task is worth doing in the first place, eliminate it, or reduce the number of times you do it.
For example, if there are three levels of approval tasks and they are formidable, reduce them by one level to two. In the inspection process, the number of inspection tasks could be reduced by a fraction of a percent by changing to a statistical method that only inspects a small portion of randomly selected products, rather than inspecting all products.
2 Task composition (decomposition)
When tasks are subdivided into smaller chunks, or when tasks are passed between multiple departments, the time required is often longer. Therefore, it may be effective to consolidate multiple tasks into a single task, or to consolidate tasks in your own department without passing them on to other departments. (Conversely, multiple tasks can become inefficient when they are combined into a single task. (In that case, it may be useful to break down the task).
3 Triage
In some cases, running sub-processes in a conditional branch may reduce the time required for a process. For example, in the procurement process, a task following the receipt of a purchase application would be to run different processes for amounts over 10 million and below.
Conversely, if the complexity is compounded by too many sub-processes, you may want to consider consolidating some of them.
FLOW level
It’s an improvement method for the order of tasks, not just a single task.
4 Re-sequencing
Re-sequencing is about reviewing the flow of tasks and rearranging them in the order that is most efficient and requires the least amount of work.
For example, if the procurement process includes two approval tasks, A and B, then on average 1% of the A task will be set back and 10% of the B task will be set back. In this case, bringing task B, which has more regressions, before task A will result in a relative decrease in the number of approvals for A, which will be more efficient and reduce the workload overall.
5 Parallelism enhancement
In some processes, where sequential processing is used, where the next task starts only after the previous task is completed, if the process is changed to one where multiple tasks are processed in parallel instead of sequentially, it is expected to reduce the time required for the entire process.
Changing sequential processing tasks to concurrent processing often has a significant effect on throughput reduction.
PROCESS level
It is an improvement based on another perspective besides the individual tasks and the order between them.
6 Specialization and standardization
Specialization aims to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction by dividing a process into multiple processes and assigning a person in charge to each sub-process to increase the expertise. For example, it is possible to divide a process into VIPs and general customers and provide a speedy and courteous service process especially for VIPs.
On the contrary, standardization is an attempt to unify multiple processes in the case of the same business because they are separated by product, etc.
7 Resource Optimization
When multiple people are running the same business process, the amount of work is concentrated on a particular person while other people are playing around, or when there is a bottleneck due to the lack of people in charge of the same amount of work, it is necessary to “optimize resources” by devising the assignment of people in charge or reviewing the shifts of people in charge.
8 Communication Optimization
If the process flow is driven by some kind of communication, such as a phone call, fax, or email, you may be able to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction by changing the timing of receiving or processing communication, for example.
9 Automation
For routine tasks where there is a clear set of procedures, automation with RPA can be effective. There are also multiple options for automation, such as developing an application that makes automatic decisions based on the input information.
Let’s first consider whether these nine rules of thumb can be applied to your own process improvement/innovation project or DX (Digital Transformation) promotion project when guiding a solution to an individual problem or issue.
As mentioned at the beginning, 29 rules of thumb for process redesign are presented in the “Fundamentals of Business Process Management”.
In addition, please take a look at the MOOCs (e-learning), which is based on the book, for detailed explanations of the nine process redesign methods introduced in the book.
現在のやり方を強化するアプローチです。ここには、TRIZ、制約理論、リーンマネジメント、シックスシグマ、BPR（Business Process Re-engineering)が含まれます。革新（Innovation)というよりは、主に改善（Improvement）のための手法です。現在の業務プロセス、業務内容を把握し、非効率性、ボトルネックなどの問題点を発見し、改善施策を講じます。組織再編も含めた、全社的に根本的な改善を行うのがBPRです。
