Isn’t it great to have two of something? For instance, if you have two batteries, and one stops functioning, you could always switch to the other. Or imagine having only one sock – such a disaster.
Similarly, when running a business, wouldn’t it be amazing if you could have a spare? Well, that is slightly implausible. But you could have a model that shows you exactly where the breakdown is. Or even better, demonstrate how a certain change in procedure will impact the functioning of your business.
Sounds exciting? This is exactly what a ‘digital twin’ of an organization is meant to do.
What is a Digital Twin?
A digital twin of an organization (DTO) is a virtual model of your business. It reflects the processes, physical assets, interactions, and data storage structures of an organization and allows users to manipulate components and identify the chain reaction of change. It is generally synchronized with its physical twin and updated in real-time to mirror any changes occurring in the organization.
In effect, digital twins are a tool that can be utilized to identify optimization opportunities by acting as a dummy for experiments. It can also be used to build and operate new components, analyze long-term effects, and keep in touch with business operations.
While DTOs have multiple use cases, explained in detail in this article by Holocentric, building them is sometimes tricky. Organizations lack the awareness, tools, and foundations to create a digital twin.
When discussing foundations, Minit states that process mining is equivalent to a foundation. It is a fundamental cog in driving digital transformation and also plays a major role in enabling RPA and DTO.
To investigate further, we asked the question – How does Process Mining contribute to the formation of a Digital Twin?
And this is what we found –
Task Mining
Most process mining tools have task mining capabilities. Task mining, or the monitoring of tasks conducted, provides an intricate view of interactions and relationships between departments, software, and users. The data derived from task mining can be cataloged and used to build and enrich process maps.
It also helps to identify potential areas for automation and relocate human employees to spaces where their skills are utilized more effectively.
Process Analysis
Process mining makes way for analysis, which, in turn, makes way for analytics, data sharing and business insight. With an in-depth understanding of process maps and analytical facts, creating a twin architecture becomes much easier. Analytical insights also aid the formation of process templates, business rules and resource sharing paths. All these are essential to the accurate mirroring of a business.
Big Data Management
In an article entitled ‘How to build a Digital Twin of an Organization with Process Mining?’, Lars Reinkemeyer details that visualization of data is the key to building an efficient twin. He believes that handling big data – collecting, understanding and presenting it – cleverly is the only way to build digital twins successfully.
Since process mining allows data mining, data management and data-driven decision making, it becomes the most suitable tool for understanding and managing big data.
Finally, do you really need a Digital Twin for your organization?
Gartner predicted that by 2020, 50% of organizations would be using digital twins. Based on this prediction, we can safely say that the industry as a whole believes DTOs are a safe bet.
On a more individual level, deciding whether or not your organization needs a digital twin, depends on the size of your organization, the sensitivity of data you deal with and your scalability.
To learn more about Process Mining, explore this section of Process Mining blogs.
