How to implement Process Mining successfully with Jean-Marc Erieau from MANN+HUMMEL
#041 Let’s have a talk about Process Mining and the best ways to implement it in your organization.
In this episode, I dive back into the world of Process Mining with Jean-Marc and explore the set-up at MANN+HUMMEL. We’ll discover what sparked their interest in Process Mining and how they convinced top management to invest in this innovative technology.
We elaborate on their journey in implementing Process Mining, from the overall strategy to managing individual use cases, and the steps they take to maintain and operate a process. Furthermore, we also discuss how they get their team excited about Process Mining.
Today’s Guest:
Jean-Marc Erieau
Jean-Marc is working at MANN+HUMMEL as Director Process Mining and Execution Management.
MANN+HUMMEL is a leading global company in filtration technology. Under its two business units, Transportation and Life Sciences & Environment, MANN+HUMMEL develops intelligent filtration and separation solutions that enable cleaner mobility, cleaner air, cleaner water, and cleaner industry.
Jean-Marc has been working for MANN+HUMMEL for more than nine years in different supply chain positions, and he was as an expat in Shanghai until COVID-19. Today, he works in MANN+HUMMEL’s headquarters in the Ludwigsburg, Germany.
Before joining MANN+HUMMEL, he worked for different other companies, always with a focus on production, distribution logistics, and supply chain management.
Jean-Marc studied Business Administration at Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University.
You’ll learn:
- How the BPM and Process Mining setup at MANN+HUMMEL looks like
- What the initial trigger was to think about the application of Process Mining
- How Jean-Marc convinced his top management to invest in Process Mining
- How they did proceed to implement Process Mining overall, how they are driving a single process mining use case, and what they are doing afterward to operate a process
- What they did to get the people excited about Process Mining
Resources
Get notified about new episodes:
Transcript
Please note that the transcript was generated automatically and only slightly adjusted. It does not claim to be a perfect transcription.
Mirko00:19
Yeah, welcome to episode 41 of the New Process Podcast. Today we’re going to find out how to successfully implement process mining. Therefore, I’m talking to Jean-Marc Erieau. Jean-marc is working at Mann Hummel as director process mining and execution management. Mann Hummel is a leading global company in filtration technology. Under its two business units transportation and life science and environment, Mann Hummel develops intelligent filtration and separation solutions that enable cleaner mobility, cleaner air, cleaner water and cleaner industry. Jean-marc has been working for Mann Hummel for more than nine years in different supply chain positions and he was an expert in Shanghai until COVID-19.
01:07
Today, Jean-Marc works in Mann Hummel’s headquarters in Ludwigsburg, Germany. Before joining Mann Hummel, he worked for different other companies, always with a focus on production, distribution, logistics and supply chain management. And, fun fact, just like me, he studied at Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University, but he studied business administration while I studied business information systems. But anyways, in this episode you’ll learn how the BPM and process mining setup at Mann Hummel looks like, what the initial trigger was to think about the application of process mining, how Jean-Marc convinced his top management to invest in process mining, how they did proceed to implement process mining overall, how they are driving a single business process mining use case and what they are doing afterward to operate a process, and for sure, we’ll talk about what they did to get the people excited about process mining.
02:05
So enjoy the interview with Jean-Marc Erieau. Yeah, Jean-Marc, it’s great to have you here in the new process podcast. I think it’s already a while since we agreed upon recording this episode, but I listened to a podcast interview where you’ve been at Christoph Pacher State of Process Automation and I just thought we have to share this story with the English-speaking process community. So, Jean-Marc, welcome, it’s great to have you here. Thanks a lot for having me. Yeah, very cool. I’m super curious to learn more and to ask my own questions, because the episode with Christoph was already super interesting. I’ll put the link into the show notes so for the ones who are speaking German or able to understand German can also listen to that episode. We try to go even deeper here today, but before we start talking about processes, what do you prefer in an aircraft? A window seat? I take the aisle seat.
Jean-Marc03:04
Okay, why? Because it’s faster to get out.
Mirko03:07
Yeah, okay, Are you flying a lot or no?
Jean-Marc03:10
if someone is sleeping on the window side, on the aisle side, and I’m sitting on the window side, so it’s a little more complicated to get out. That’s why I prefer to sit on the aisle.
Mirko03:20
Okay, very good, and what is your favorite airport? I would say it’s Frankfurt why?
Speaker03:27
Really.
Jean-Marc03:27
Yes, yeah, it’s a simple reason. I was living in China for three years, from 27 to 2020, and coming back to Frankfurt was always like coming home, okay, and that was a reason why Frankfurt is always being back. Yeah, I mean very nice airports Singapore, even Shanghai. I like them a lot. Or, if you look, bangkok is also a nice one, but it’s more emotional to go back to Frankfurt.
Mirko03:56
Yeah, okay, that’s true. I always had this feeling when I entered in Lufthansa aircraft. Wherever I was around the world, entering the aircraft was already like coming home.
Jean-Marc04:06
Yeah, yeah, that’s also right Lufthansa flight. Quite often I flew back with China, but yeah, going back with Lufthansa is also starting to get home.
Mirko04:17
Yeah, that’s true, nice, okay, and what was the best process you have ever experienced? The best process?
Jean-Marc04:24
Maybe also what comes to my mind is ordering something at Taobao or JDcom in Shanghai, because it was so seamless. It was just ordering your stuff In the morning. You get it up to noon or 11 o’clock in the morning. You see even the driver on the street bringing your back to your compound and your house. So that was so simple, done and very transparent. That’s something I really liked.
Mirko04:53
Okay, yeah, that’s cool. Very good, and how would you describe your relationship to processes? I?
Jean-Marc05:01
mean processes have been always somehow part of my life or my business environment. I’m a logistics operations guy, so I started with logistics in 1997. Since then I had various roles in logistics. I was also doing some SAP implementations, but whatever I was doing was somehow, of course, linked to processes. So getting somehow the material through your organization, through your production plan, to the customer. And that’s why now doing process mining is, of course, on top of whatever I did in the past, because it’s really giving us an incredible visibility on processes and what is really going on. I mean, when I think back how we did process modeling years back in Visio or Aris and we just thought that this is a process and everyone was agreeing as this is a process and we would expect of course some deviations, but we would not of course expect the number of variants we really then see with process mining. So this really for me a really game changer.
Mirko06:11
Yeah, okay yeah, for me too, that’s so true. Okay Cool, then let’s go deeper into the direction of process mining. But before, I think it will be good for our listeners to get an understanding of how man and Hummel looks like. So how is the company organized? What kind of business units, locations, legal entities, how does it look like?
Jean-Marc06:33
Man and Hummel is a family-owned business. We do 4.8 billion in revenue. We are now 82 years old and located in more than 30 countries with more than 80 plants, and we produce any kind of filtration systems. So we produce for especially transportation, like oil filters, cabin air filters, liquid filters, but we also produce air filters for, for example, surgery rooms or bus stations, or we use filtration for water. So whether you use a filtration or filter, the chance to see something which was produced by man and Hummel is quite high.
Mirko07:24
Okay, that’s interesting. Actually, I wasn’t really aware of the company and the products before. Yeah.
Jean-Marc07:32
Man and Hummel maybe is not the brand name. We are well known as man Filter. So when you go to a shop then you see our boxes oil filters in green and yellow. So this is very everyone knows it, at least in Germany. We have brands like Purlator, like Wix in the US, where we are quite well known as a brand yeah.
Mirko07:54
Okay, cool. And when did the company start with process management? So was there already an approach before you started with process mining?
Jean-Marc08:03
Or we are running SAP since, I think, close to 25 years and we did a lot of development. That’s why we have, of course, a kind of a business process management organization since many years. But I think that starting this year, we changed somehow our approach. So we had, of course, process owners, we had users, process experts and however you want to name them. That was something which was already there, but maybe we had to rearrange it a little bit. That’s exactly what we did starting last year.
08:43
I must say that the process mining initiative was a little bit faster, so it means faster set it up, and then the idea of attaching the business process management organization was something which came then up later in the discussion. I’m always saying now, looking back the last three years where we started with process mining, it’s somehow now that these topics somehow came on a natural way together. So on one side doing process mining, then understanding that we have to change and adapt in business process management, and also to understand that we have to execute on our strategy in a different way than before. So it’s not the way that three years back we knew exactly what we need to do. It’s more that these topics came somehow together and it was just a natural match, and that’s why I think we are, in some areas, quite successful.
Mirko09:42
Okay, so it wasn’t the case that the business process management guy said we have to look into process mining.
Speaker09:48
No.
Mirko09:49
It was different. What was the trigger and how did you start?
Jean-Marc09:52
The trigger was that when I came back from China 2020, I started with some initiatives in the area of digitalization, and one topic was that we run a so-called ideation gem where we asked 22,000 people in our company, what are your ideas on IIoT? And then we created 1,400 nice ideas. But then we had to realize that we have no clue Now I’m exaggerating a little bit here, but that we are not really clear on how the processes have been implemented. Last year and that was the starting point. Then I investigated how can we get quite fast visibility on the processes, and that was the starting point for process mining. Then we started with a POC and it was in the incoming area, and later on I was allowed to start a big initiative within the group.
Mirko10:44
Yeah. And how did you convince your top management to invest in process mining? Because upfront you need money to have a tool to look into before you can really realize benefits based on the findings of process mining. How did you convince management?
Jean-Marc11:00
I think it was just based on the POC. I was not able to show any results. I must say it was not the best idea to go into the goods receipt process, because then you talk about many, many plans with different processes and different implementation, and that was not very smart. Now, three years later, that was my finding. But later on, of course, understanding the potential of process mining in combination with an S4HANA implementation, in combination with setting up or rearranging a business process management organization, that was something where everyone was saying, yes, definitely, this makes sense. I mean still something which is process mining is not coming from the shelf. So we know that there is a lot of development in the market, a lot of movement when you see the different vendors at the moment. But it wasn’t, of course, a natural match that these topics are coming together.
11:55
And then we created a business case, and that’s always important. We are a Swibian company, so we want to get the payback for the money we spend. And we put a quite aggressive business case on top, which I have at the end proof, month by month, that we are producing and we are making savings. So we are not stopping with having visibility, we want to really improve the processes and measure the improvement. That’s very important. That was a starting point in 2022 in January, that we said OK, let’s go group-wide with process mining. And we even put process mining into our strategic roadmap, saying that until 2026 we want to achieve this and that and that.
Mirko12:47
OK, and how does the process mining setup look like? How did you approach that?
Jean-Marc12:53
We started with an external consultant C company and I mean, it’s known that we are doing this with Salonis and we started with Accenture. So that was the starting point to ramp everything up, to be very fast in implementation and, same time, to set up a center of excellence. So that’s something we started in 2022, in March and I would say 12 months later we had a team of 8 to 10 people going from then back end and value tracking. So basically to set up and same time we set it up a kind of an operating model for our BPM with our process experts globally.
Mirko13:35
Yeah, ok. And how do you approach the different initiatives now? How do you find the topics to work on, the processes to mine and so on?
Jean-Marc13:46
It’s that we have on a regular-based workshops with the business. I push, of course, the vendor a lot to give more ideas, to give more use cases. So that’s my understanding of being a vendor and a solution provider. So there’s a lot of discussion, but it’s needed, I think. So it’s like a healthy heat between us to create new ideas, to look into new cases, and that’s exactly what I’m doing Basically. I’m always trying to find new opportunities in the processes, together with the business, to have additional use cases. We manage a kind of a pipeline in front of us and as long as I have enough use cases in front of me, everything is fine. I would get into problems, of course, if my pipeline would run low and there are no ideas, and that’s something, of course, I would like to avoid. That means also that we are really measuring the level of the pipeline we have filled in.
Mirko14:50
Yeah, ok, what do the people say out there working in the processes? How do you get these people excited about process mining, or are they excited, or what do they say?
Jean-Marc15:01
I would say that everyone is excited having a first touch with process mining. Yeah, I would really say 95% are very surprised, astonished and can’t believe what we see. Even if you tell, okay, I make here an update every day or every hour and you get the data more or less in close real time, and so I would say everyone has a buy-in, the topic is later on, of course. If you see that you have to do something in your progress, in your process not progress then of course it’s getting more difficult, because I’m always saying you need to understand your process and then you need to understand the action. If you have no clear picture on the action, there’s no value behind it, because the value comes only if you act on the process. If there’s no action, what do you want to expect? It’s just inside, and for inside you’re not getting anything. This license cost, you pay and you’re sent off excellence. That’s why you have to really understand the action, and that’s always my first question to the business Are we clear on the action we want to perform on the process? If we have this dashboard or whatever in place, if I’m not getting an answer, then this is, of course, the signal that we are not clear on how to really then act later on. And then, of course and this is exactly the point where you are generating value Before, you are not generating any value, just to have the inside, it’s nothing. It’s interesting, of course, what I wanted to know since the last 10 years maybe, but you need to act on the process.
16:43
If you are not acting, you will see no values wherever you want to look, and then it’s getting, of course, difficult, because then we have a strong governance in place. So we have a kind of a strategic execution management platform where we hand over the use cases to the business and I align the opportunity and the savings with the business, and this is a kind of a mutual agreement. Then we track these use cases month by month and the progress is presented month by month on the top management level. This brings, of course, visibility in both directions. So if everything runs fine and you show progress, everyone is happy. But if you don’t show any progress, then of course you are having, of course, the same visibility.
17:34
And then you need to answer, of course, why we are not moving forward. Is it maybe because we have, we miss, the resources in the business? Is it because we maybe underestimated the effort. Is it maybe because you totally underestimated the value behind or overestimated the value, so that could be also happening that you think that this could be the value behind? And then you start and you want to take action in the process and then you see, okay, maybe the validation was wrong or what, so this could happen? That’s why I’m always trying to have multiple race horses in the game, because if one horse is maybe not performing as expected, I have maybe a second or third one which hopefully generates some value.
Mirko18:24
Yeah, okay. And how did the overall perception of processes change when you started with these activities? So, looking into the past, I’m not sure how well processes were perceived by top management, by the ones being accountable for the process, like the process owners, and by the employees working in the process. Did that change the situation Now? How do you think do the people think about?
Jean-Marc18:49
processes. I would say that it changed in that way that people are now accepting that processes might run different to the way they think they run. No, because this is also something people need to learn that maybe their expectation or their idea of how these processes are really running is not the same like the reality. And, for example, when I started, there’s a very simple use case it’s T and I delivered, not invoiced Means you send something to the customer and you for what reason? You are not invoicing to the customer.
19:26
And if you would ask, of course, finance, controlling or operations guys, and you would say, okay, are we sure that we are invoicing everything, everyone would say yes, of course we are, but we are not. There are situations where invoices get lost, technical interfaces, whatever and this is something you just need to first excel. Yeah, that you’re not 100% sure, and this is something I think we learned as an organization that we have areas where we are not having full transparency. I mean, we have it also around that we thought we are pretty bad in a certain process and then we had to realize, oh, we are not so bad, we are very good.
20:09
Yeah, so in both directions, and I think this is something if you are getting more open to discuss opportunities in a process, then of course it’s helpful, because then you can really go into workshops, think about, okay, what could be a next use case to look into, because there might be an opportunity you would not really expect.
Mirko20:29
Yeah, Okay, and can you share in practical example of how you proceed with the different use cases? So is there a standard procedure on how to get the value out of the processes? So how do you start, how do you find the ideas and then so on?
Jean-Marc20:46
What we are doing is always we write down our user stories, saying, okay, I have this dashboard with that information, then I would later on perform this and that on the process. Yeah, and that’s something we always write down. And then, based on this, we are calculating the savings we expect. And we into cost saving, revenue increase or labor efficiency increase these are basically our cost categories. And then and this is not unique, but at least I would say that we always try to really stick to the approach is that for each and every use case, we are having one tracking dashboard. So if we have a use case and we want to increase EDI or we want to reduce credit memos, something like this, then you really have an additional dashboard where we are tracking if we are moving in the desired direction. Yeah, and by doing this, of course, we can then really see day by day if we are moving forward or not. Okay, and that’s something we really try to. Oh, no, we are running it for every use case.
21:58
I would say you know, there’s not one is where we are not measuring the progress. Yeah, because then it’s really a data driven approach. There’s no, I mean, you could have, of course, the wrong measuring point. Yeah, it could also happen. Or you might have a baseline where you’re comparing to and then you cannot really say 100% that your action is really paying into the improvement compared to the baseline. But this is how we we measure our progress and this, at the end, not too much to discuss. Yeah, so this is the progress, you see it, and if you are not progressing, we need to explain.
Mirko22:35
Okay, so from a practical perspective, you send one of your experts from the center of excellence to the business and then they do workshops, or how?
Jean-Marc22:45
Yeah, exactly this is the way. So we are running. Also this week we are running with our purchasing team a workshop to to get a deeper understanding on additional use cases they might see. So we did already workshops where we as a center of excellence are coming to the business saying, okay, look here, this is a catalog of different use cases. Do you think that there’s something in between you can use? But we are also doing it the way around, that we are asking the business please tell me, do you have some pain points? Do you have some issues where you might see opportunities for us with Salonis or process mining, to get some improvements done? It could be a kind of an automation. It could be, of course, some incoterm topics, whatever that we are then filling up additionally the pipeline.
Mirko23:32
Okay, and what about the implementation of the improvement ideas? How are you doing this? Is this just done by the business on their own, or no, the implementation, technically, is done by the center of excellence.
Jean-Marc23:46
Okay, so we have always a front end and a back end guy supporting us. Here they are sitting together with the business. We start now, at the beginning, with a kind of a requirement workshop and then we run the project, or we call it also like an MVP. We run it in two weeks sprints. So, depending on the size, maybe we have two to three sprints to get the first initial implementations done. That’s the way how we do it. We started last year. We started with five weeks in total, or seven weeks in total for the MVPs, depending on the complexity.
24:26
You know, when you have, for example, a standard use case, you might have already a standard data model, standard connector. Then it’s easy to get it prepared. But if you would go into a totally different area where maybe the experience is not so big and there are maybe no connectors or data models, then of course you might need two more weeks to get up the data model on your own. That’s how we try to figure it out. Of course, now we have many, many data models already in place I think 13. So we have P2P, ar, ap, production, execution, quality order, management, dispute. We started with sustainability, so there are so many already that we are just putting, of course, an additional dashboard on top. We can deliver dashboards within two days. That’s possible.
Mirko25:19
Okay, wow, that’s interesting. And how do you enable the people in the business? I think now they are already in most of the areas on a certain level, but how did you start to enable them? And what are you doing now? And what are your counterparts? Are you having these process owners? And I don’t know how do you call their helping hands, because I guess the ones who are accountable for the process are not really the experts working on all the details. How does your setup in the business look like?
Jean-Marc25:47
At the beginning, of course, we looked for people who are very much interested and motivated to do something like process mining. Luckily, we found people to get a first pull in the different areas and we have areas already now creating use cases by their own. Yeah, so that’s nice. But we still have, of course, areas where we are really at the beginning. Yeah, so I think that’s quite normal for every bigger company. That is, areas you are maybe moving a little bit faster than in others.
26:18
What we are doing is, on a regular basis, we are doing trainings, so we are inviting hundreds of people to join an open training session for the different areas and we have trainings for AR, ap and so on. Everyone can participate. And additionally, we are also having kind of continuous improvement circles where people are then coming together. For example, we nominate 10 plants and then we look into specific use cases and then we are trying to improve the performance or reduce the inefficiencies together in these improvement cycles. And that’s interesting because then people are really coming together in the region, for example.
27:02
Yeah, so means we have one team in APAC meeting every two weeks, getting more and more understanding of processes, going deeper and deeper, maybe also identifying that plants have the same issues because they are maybe serving the same customers. That could be one topic, or it could be really that we see totally different root courses and then we can support each other in these sessions to get some ideas created. Yeah, yeah, so it’s a lot, I would say. I mean it’s not really technically. I was saying process mining is not a technical problem. It’s really bringing people together, get the communication done, get the continuous improvement done and then act on the process. So I would even say it’s 80 percent its people and 20 percent maybe having the dashboards and the technical stuff somehow done.
Mirko27:55
Yeah, I love that. That’s very good.
Jean-Marc27:59
And this is also my role. I need to, of course, promote and talk to all these people and, yeah, that makes us moving forward. I would say the whole package.
Mirko28:11
Yeah, ok, cool. And looking into the future on two levels for the different processes where you are implementing changes, improvements, and on a global level with regards to the center of excellence. What’s your vision there and what direction is that going?
Jean-Marc28:27
My vision and, as I said, it’s already set into stone that we want to have process mining everywhere. So we want to have business units and BPM organization being very close to process mining measuring in the future, conformance, for example yeah, we do a so-called standard best practice measuring, throughput measuring, automation and stuff like that. And, of course, working on these topics, we are starting now to look into object-centric process mining. I mean, if this is really running and saying really running because let’s see if we really have every data model and get every one really in a performant way If this would be the case, then this is a totally game-changing, my understanding, because that would allow us, of course, to navigate in whatever processes and dimensions we would like to and, as I said, this would be a game-changer.
29:32
But it would be also, of course, a kind of a huge requirement to such an organization, because if you start with thinking transactional, then you move into end-to-end processes and then you maybe move into an object-centric approach where you put everything together. This needs, of course, an upskilling of the organization in many areas and no one can cover everything. It’s just impossible. It’s just getting too complex and this will be a journey. That’s why I love this approach, but on the same way, I feel that this is a huge challenge for us and for all the other companies, of course also.
Mirko30:18
That’s true and on a specific business level, what are you expecting there? What will happen with regards to process ownership and the experts working on the processes in the future? What are your expectations there and how are you facilitating to get into that?
Jean-Marc30:33
direction, as I just touched it’s that we start to measure, of course, conformance.
30:39
That’s one starting point to really look into the processes end-to-end, because this is something we maybe not did in the same way in the last years.
30:50
So this is how we want to bring it into that direction, and what we also see is that now going a little bit away from positive mining or those may be the tool to the framework to measure it, but we are talking about a lot of different technologies. So it could be an AI bot in between, it could be an OCR tool, it could be something which is reading your emails to get something triggered. So there’s a lot more to come in direction of these GPOs and GSA GO means global process owner, gsa solution architect, which is covering the design, and this will be very interesting for these people because the technology is so fast at the moment. The topic is popping up there in the processes. It’s not only SAP, it’s not a BPM tool. There are so many topics which needs to combine together to get a kind of cutting-edge process, and that’s why I think this is a really interesting time at the moment where we are looking and moving into.
Mirko32:03
Yeah, absolutely. I fully agree, and this is what I’m doing a lot of research on at the moment to find ways on how to enable these people who are responsible or even accountable for business processes, to find new ways on how to rethink their processes, and always taking the people into account. Yeah, exactly.
Jean-Marc32:25
And this is really I mean, when you think about all these technologies and it’s not only technology you need to then know a little bit about change management, because you need to act in the process, in the organization. You also need to understand the business purpose. So what is the impact of your through-time approach? How much working capital can you impact? What is the saving? What is the resource you need or you take out? So it’s getting to a more holistic approach that you need to be not an SAP transactional expert. You need to be an expert for a whole process with a lot of technology and the ability to bring the change to the organization. And that’s why I’m saying this is not a simple role.
Mirko33:07
No, absolutely not, and I think it’s still often underestimated by the organizations how important it is to invest into these kinds of people working in and on the business for a specific business process and supporting them from a center of excellence, for example.
Jean-Marc33:26
Yeah, and that’s why I think process mining is, of course, delivering exactly the visibility to explain a little bit the need, Because if you then realize that you have thousands of different implementations or variants in your process and so on, then of course you are it’s easier to explain to an organization why it is needed, why we have maybe an impact, why we can save 10 million of working capital in a certain process by doing something.
Mirko33:55
Yeah, absolutely. I’m super thankful that process mining gives us this opportunity to make it really visible what is going on, because in the past it was just painting or mapping processes without a relationship to the real business, to real numbers. It was often just the picture of the experts but no data connection there, and I think we’re thankful for that.
Jean-Marc34:18
I mean, last week we had an S4HANA transformation workshop running three days and Will van der Aals was also giving a speech 30 minutes to the whole organization and his starting point was also BPM is dead. Someone was years ago, I don’t know, saying that giving this statement and then he also said I know the topic of having now BPM combined with process mining is really then leveraging this approach and can really help to get it done. I mean, the idea of BPM is, of course, totally valid, but maybe now there’s a tool which is really helping to underline the need really in a data-driven approach.
Mirko35:02
Yeah, absolutely Cool. Wow, that was super interesting. To wrap it up, what would you say is your key message to our listeners with regards to the people? To rethink processes, to get the people excited, and so on.
Jean-Marc35:17
I would really say start early with process mining. No, because the thing is this process mining is only a starting point, as an entry point into the change. It’s not that you make a dashboard and you see a process. No, it’s that you make on top automation, that you then go into deeper topics, that you have maybe later on operational dashboards where organizations are directly working day by day in the dashboards. It’s a totally game changer. That’s why I’m saying, if you don’t think too long to use process mining, if the german middle stand is a lot of discussions with other companies at the moment, because they are, they approach me to get some feedback and there’s a lot, of, a lot of hesitation and I asked myself okay, why are they hesitating? They have to do it anyway. I mean, if you want to digitalize your process, how do you want to do it if you are not using?
36:12
this money I mean there is no other technology, there’s nothing. So you need to start with the technology, whatever vendor you are choosing, but you need to go into process money to support the bpm organization, to digitalize the process, otherwise it’s just the person. Yeah, so when you can? Now the question I’m always saying, also within our group we can discuss when we start with process money, but we cannot discuss if we start at all. That’s not a valid question yeah, so true, yeah, and.
Mirko36:48
But it’s often hard to get into this topic and to start thinking in processes, because that’s often the hurdle, I would say. But if the people understand especially the management understands, it’s in the end it’s all about processes then dive right into.
Jean-Marc37:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You mean, when you see it, when you look into the initiatives in germany on europe, the big implementations of process money, there’s always a person who is, of course, driving these initiatives. So it is. I think it’s always important that you have someone who is driving the initiative. You have also to have someone in the top management, in the board, with supporting that initiative and then I think in that combination it can be successful. If you don’t have someone on top level, don’t start. It’s just a waste of energy. If you don’t have someone who is really then trying to push initiative through the organization whatever comes, that’s also difficult, you know. If you want to drive it out of it, for example, only as an it project is will also not be successful. That’s at least my thinking here and you need to have a kind of I mean I’m not sitting in it now because of initiative, but I’m still received as a business person. Yeah, I was doing logistics since many, many years yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s very good, okay, cool.
Mirko38:09
I could go on for hours. But with regards to the time, where can our listeners learn more about your activities?
Jean-Marc38:16
Are. You can follow me on linkedin, of course. Yeah, as you know, I’m posting on a regular base, or at least I tried to post. Sometimes it’s not so easy. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I think I need something to post today. I have nothing on my on the plate. That’s getting stressful. But yeah, that’s where you, of course, can read a little bit what we are doing mananumal or even outside of mananumal.
38:43
Yeah, so I’m going to put the link to your profile into the show notes so that people can easily reach out to you what could be also interesting is the icpm Okay, yeah conference process, mining which will happen next year in october, mid-october I think twenty something, I’m not hundred cent sure now will be in Copenhagen, where academics and industries are coming together to exchange and use cases, to think about training and stuff like that, and this is not linked to Certain vendors only. It’s when the holistic that could be also a nice, yeah event people can join and see also what is what’s coming up in the next years in academics, where academics are doing research, when you think about jenny I and all the topics at the moment which I discuss everywhere, of course, that’s why I’m saying it’s very impressive time we are in can learn a lot at the moment so you are going there and you’re also presenting, or yeah, and papers or presenting there was there also now to one or two months back in Rome.
39:53
Yeah, and I would be there again in Copenhagen.
Mirko39:56
Yeah, cool, that sounds very good, nice, perfect. One question I always ask my, my , is do you have a recommendation of which Tool, method or expert I should have a closer look on to get new ideas on how to rethink processes? So doesn’t have to necessarily be related to cross mining or business process management, could be anything. So what topic would you or expert would you recommend a closer look on?
Jean-Marc40:24
No, I don’t have something specifically in my mind, I’m just thinking about execution process. When it comes to try to strategy, I think it’s Very important to get visibility on progress. Whatever you do. I’m setting up a bpm organization could be use cases. You want to generate value, it could be that you want to make training and increase adoption rate or whatever, but you need to measure it and bring it to the top management level and because Then you I’m sure you will get the support you need. So therefore, it’s not a specific tool, but you need to make it transparent.
Mirko41:06
Yeah, the organization okay, yeah, that’s really important. That’s true. Okay, so we already landed our aircraft today, but before we leave the aircraft, is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners? Miss anything or?
Jean-Marc41:22
Already touched so much, I would say, yeah, if you are not using process mining so far, go into it, look into it. There are even solutions where you’re not paying any money for. That’s why is I think there is a kind of an urgency behind to get this done. If you want to really digitalize your process, if you want to move forward, if you want to have a kind of a cutting edge compared to your competitors, then you have to go into that direction. There’s no way around. You cannot Do bpm in the way we did it maybe ten years back, with having a brown paper and then trying to explain a little bit what’s happening there in the process. Yeah, that’s why I’m saying there is a kind of an urgency behind.
Mirko42:06
Yeah, okay, thank you for these great closing words. How would you describe your flight experience was just three words.
Jean-Marc42:14
First of all, it was fun. Of course it was. As you said, there’s so much content. I would say we could really discuss this, I think, for hours. And no, I like it, I like it and I always like to talk about process mining. Of course I’m sometimes I’m using the hashtag sharing my passion, because this is really something where I have a lot of fun and where I think companies can really have an impact. Yeah, yeah, and that’s why I mean it’s not free words, excitement and pretty passion, wow that’s, that’s perfect.
Mirko42:54
So much, thank you so much for being my and I’m really looking forward to go deeper in this conversation some point in the future, maybe at the new process conference in April next year or maybe in Copenhagen we’ll see. So much, thank you so much for being my . Have a great day. Bye, bye, thanks, a lot talk to you soon.
Mirko43:20
Yeah, that was super interesting to learn more about money who melts approach to implement and to operate process mining. And I really like John Marks recommendation to start early with process mining. So my experience, process mining is doing an impressive job. To really show the process yeah, make it visible, based on data, and it gives you the opportunity to quantify potential benefits of improvements. I mean it’s not that you start with process mining on day one of your process journey. I would always recommend that you first have to think in processes. You have to identify the process and the respective people and so on, and maybe it’s also recommendable to enable to train to up skill these people like process owners and process architects first. But as soon as a basic process culture is established, you can start with process mining and it will help you so much to get people excited about processes Because you can make process visible, somehow touchable. The people can really experience the, as is process based on data.
So in the next episode we’ll have a deep dive into the results of my survey on the BPM topics 2024. As you know, as the community, as you, what BPM topics you have on your list for 2024, and In the next episode I’m going to share the results with you, and I also asked some of the BPM thought leaders for their top BPM topics 2024. So this will be also part of the episode and thank you so much for participating in the survey and posting your topics. They will be integrated, for sure, but for now, thank you much for listening. Have a great day. Bye, bye and Auf Wiedersehen.
Mirko45:24
Before you leave, there is a lot going on with new process at the moment. Not only are we working hard on new process conference, where we can finally meet in person, no, we are also working on a digital platform where you can meet other BPM enthusiasts to exchange ideas and to join forces. So I’m really happy to invite you to new process pro today. New process pro is the platform for true process management enthusiasts like you and me. To learn more, just go to new process lab dot com slash pro and become a new process pro today. So thank you much, bye, bye.
