process mining explained by an example | episode 6

Process mining explained by an exampleThe logistics process at SmartCoat Inc.

SmartCoat

Episode 6 (out of 8): interactions

process mining explained by an example© 2016 horsum

Ep. 6: interactions2

What’s on this week?

Interactions


What preceded …



What preceded…

Marie, CEO of SmartCoat Inc., asked us to analyze and make recommendations for the logistics process via process mining and dataanalytics techniques ... Just by looking at the data in SmartCoat’s ERP system!

In the fifth episode, Cédric investigated the bottlenecks in SmartCoat’s logistics process. He identified lengthy process activities, process loops and some violations against business rules.

Have you missed the fifth episode? Click on Marie … and you will be redirected to the fifth episode!

http://www.horsum.be/en/blog/large-company/mining-analytics/process-mining-explained-example-episode-5-bottlenecks



Interactions



Hi, welcome … or better, welcome back!

In this episode, I will show you the logistics process at SmartCoat Inc. from a different perspective. I will visualize the “journey” of a smartphone at SmartCoat Inc.

First of all, I will investigate the sequence the SmartCoaters handle smartphones and what interactions exist amongst the SmartCoaters.

Do you remember who the SmartCoaters are? No? Here you go …

Cédric, your horsum guide

CédricConsultant

ArthurTomAlix Elise JeromeEdwardWarehouse

assistantCoater Test engineerTest engineer Warehouse

managerWarehouse

assistant

MarieCEO





Cédric, your horsum guide

Secondly, I will show you the flow of the smartphones through the SmartCoat locations. As a reminder, you

can find the locations on the right.

To perform these visualizations, I will again work with the process mining software Disco:

RECEIVE

CHECK

STORE UNCOATED

PICK-TO-COAT

COAT

TEST

STORE COATED

SHIP

PICK-TO-SHIP

Process activity Who? Location?

Warehouseman Inbound area

Warehouseman Inbound area

Warehouseman Warehouse uncoated

Warehouseman Warehouse uncoated

Coater Coating room

Test engineer Testing room

Warehouseman Warehouse coated

Warehouseman Warehouse coated

Warehouseman Outbound area

https://fluxicon.com/disco/

https://fluxicon.com/disco/


Analysis

On the right, you find a visualization of the sequential flow of

smartphones: you are able to see which

SmartCoater has handled a smartphone and how he/she interacts with

his/her colleagues.

Let’s discuss this further on the next page.

1. The journey via SmartCoaters


Here’s what I see when I look at the visualization:

• The bigger the arc between 2 people, the stronger employees are connected with each other in the logistics process.

• I see that all arcs from and to Alix (coater) are the biggest. This is normal because she is the only one who performs the coating activities in SmartCoat Inc. To me, this is a huge risk … what would happen if she is out … is there a back-upin place?

• I also note that Edward performs significantly more the firsttest on smartphones compared to Elise. This is shown by a big arc from Alix to Edward. This confirms what I saw in Episode 4.


Now, I will include the time perspective to make the process come alive. The screenshot below shows the smartphones present in the logistics process on Friday March 16, 2016 at 15:32:08.

Do you want to see the full animation? Click on the screenshot and watch it on YouTube!

Last week, I noticed that Arthur does not perform any logistics activities as from March 10, 2016.The full animation confirms this trend: At first, I see Arthur mostly performing the inbound

activities. However, after a while I see that only Tom is receiving smartphones. Let’s discuss this with Marie …

https://youtu.be/4NOOMPE1GEA




2. The journey through the SmartCoat locations

On the right, I visualized the flow of smartphones through the SmartCoat locations.

As last week, I mention 2 performance indicators next to each arc.

The upper one represents the total duration of all smartphones combined between 2 process steps (activities). This indicator highlights the

high-impact locations. The lower one represents the number of

unique smartphones that pass this location.Again, the bigger the arcs, the more time the

smartphones do stay at this location.

Let’s discuss this on the next slide …

2. The journey through the SmartCoat locations

I notice that smartphones spent the mosttime in both warehouse locations

(“warehouse uncoated” - 34,3 weeks & “warehouse coated” – 22,5 weeks).

I see significant red loops next to these locations. Why? Well … because it is

registered when a smartphone enters and leaves the location. As such, multiple

activities are performed in these locations resulting in loops.

Thanks to these registrations, we can exactly determine the time a smartphone spends in

our warehouses!


Feedback to Marie



Feedback Marie, I have analyzed the interactions amongst your employees and the different locations. This is what specifically caught my attention:

Alix is a key person in the process. In prior episodes, I saw that she is the only one who performs coating activities. You should think about foreseeing a back-up in case Alix would be out for a period of time.

What happened to Arthur? He has not performed any logistics activities since March 10th, 2016 …

Smartphones are significantly longer present in your two warehouse locations (uncoated and coated). I suggest looking into this because

on-time delivery is important to your customers. Maybe you can speed-up your logistics process which will increase customer

satisfaction. In addition, lowering the time of smartphones in your warehouses will save SmartCoat money. Let’s dive into the details next week… when I

will calculate how much the process costs.


Do you want to know how Cédric will analyze the process costs?


Ep. 6: interactions17www.horsum.be

Watch the episode next week!

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Planning

April 7th, 2016

April 14th, 2016

April 21st, 2016

April 28th, 2016

May 5th, 2016

May 12th, 2016

May 19th, 2016

May 26th, 2016

Episode 1: introduction

Episode 2: process discovery

Episode 3: process deviations

Episode 4: benchmarking

Episode 5: bottlenecks

Episode 6: interactions

Episode 7: process costs

Episode 8: prediction and real-time

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Contact us!Questions?

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Dennis Houthoofd Frederik Vervoort

T: +32 488 90 41 40E: [email protected]

T: +32 473 91 05 80E: [email protected]

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process mining explained by an example | episode 6

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