Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: The World of Object-Centric Process Mining
Process mining has revolutionized the way businesses analyze and improve their workflows by leveraging event logs to create detailed process models. Traditionally, case-centric process mining (CCPM) has been the standard approach, focusing on a single case type (e.g., orders, claims, or invoices) to analyze process flows. While effective for specific scenarios, CCPM has inherent limitations when processes involve multiple objects or intertwined workflows.
Enter object-centric process mining (OCPM), a paradigm that expands the boundaries of process analysis by incorporating multiple object types and their relationships. Inspired by the multiverse-like connections in the movie Everything, Everywhere All At Once, OCPM reveals the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate elements, showing how small actions in one area can ripple across a complex system. This blog explores the unique capabilities of OCPM that are unattainable in CCPM, illustrating why it’s a game-changer for complex business processes.
1. Analyzing Multi-Object Interactions with Celonis
In CCPM, the analysis is constrained to a single case type, which makes it challenging to understand how different objects interact within a process. Celonis’s OCPM capabilities enable the analysis of multiple object types simultaneously (e.g., customers, orders, and payments), capturing intricate relationships and dependencies.
Example: In a utilities scenario, CCPM might analyze meter-to-cash purely from the perspective of customer accounts. With Celonis, you can simultaneously analyze customer accounts, meter readings, and invoices, revealing how delays in one object (e.g., meter readings) propagate through related objects, impacting billing and payments.
2. Discovering Object Relationships in Celonis
Processes often involve interactions that are not evident when focusing on a single case type. Celonis enables businesses to uncover these hidden relationships, offering a more holistic view of the process landscape through its object-centric event models.
Example: In supply chain management, Celonis maps how purchase orders relate to goods receipts and invoices, identifying patterns such as late goods receipts causing delayed invoice processing. Celonis’s advanced data connectors and modeling capabilities simplify this otherwise complex task.
3. Tracking Throughput Across Object Boundaries with Celonis
CCPM typically measures performance metrics like cycle time within the boundaries of a single case type. Celonis’s OCPM approach transcends these boundaries, enabling throughput analysis across interconnected objects.
Example: With Celonis, you can calculate the time from the first occurrence of a customer placing an order to the final delivery of goods, even if multiple processes and objects (e.g., orders, shipments, and inventory) are involved. Celonis’s object-centric dashboards make this analysis seamless and actionable.
4. Facilitating End-to-End Process Transparency with Celonis
CCPM often requires stitching together insights from multiple analyses to achieve end-to-end visibility. Celonis’s OCPM offers this transparency natively by integrating data from multiple objects into a single model.
Example: In the retail industry, Celonis provides a unified view of the customer journey, from browsing and placing an order to fulfillment and post-purchase support, all in one model. Tailored dashboards in Celonis deliver actionable insights from such comprehensive views.
Celonis makes object-centric process mining accessible, actionable, and transformative. By enabling multi-object analysis, uncovering hidden relationships, and providing end-to-end transparency, Celonis empowers businesses to tackle complex challenges and achieve breakthroughs in operational efficiency. For organizations looking to stay competitive, adopting Celonis’s OCPM capabilities isn’t just an upgrade—it’s the future of process analysis.
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