This week in process excellence

Another week draws to a close and it was a particularly busy one in the world of process excellence. 

On Monday, our Research & Reports bulletin examined new research from Nokia, revealing that 60 percent of communications service providers (CSPs) in the Middle East & North Africa (MEA) region are adopting 5G to enhance their digital transformation. Nokia estimated that by 2029, the continued rapid adoption of 5G technology in the region will see subscriptions reach 519 million, with 48 percent of total data traffic expected to be driven by 5G. 

Elsewhere, researchers published novel guidelines to help businesses use process mining to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets in production processes. The guidance provides detailed steps for defining business and data requirements, analyzing inefficiencies and formulating recommendations to enhance sustainability reporting.  

What’s more, a new case study by academics from the University of Calabria outlined how a business process management approach can support the digitalization of a public university and a new paper from The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) set out a framework for the digital twin development of industrial cyber-physical systems based on process mining. 

On Wednesday, we covered the latest industry Vendor news including technology giant and process mining provider IBM releasing its most advanced family of AI models to date, Granite 3.0. IBM’s third-generation Granite flagship language models can outperform or match similarly sized models from leading model providers on many academic and industry benchmarks, showcasing strong performance, transparency and safety, the firm stated.  

Meanwhile, Microsoft 365 previewed new AI capabilities in partnership with robotic process automation (RPA) vendor UiPath designed to transform business processes. In other news, Indico Data launched a new agentic AI application to enhance underwriting processes, process mining leader Celonis hosted its annual process intelligence conference Celosphere in Germany, Mendix was named low-code leader in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant™ and Fennex won the Best Digital Transformation prize at the Gulf Energy Excellence Awards in Houston, Texas. 

On Friday, our Community roundup included the news that banking giant HSBC is to divide its global operations into eastern and western markets as part of a major shake-up. The move will help the company operate as a “simpler, more dynamic and agile organization,” according to new chief executive, Georges Elhedery. The major overhaul will see HSBC split into four lines of business, merging its commercial and institutional banking divisions. 

Footwear company OrthoLite announced the appointment of Raj Santhana as its new VP of OPEX. Santhana, who spent seven years at Adidas, will work closely with the company’s global foam innovation team to lead the firm’s manufacturing excellence and innovation as well as automation and digital transformation. In further news, Japan Airlines celebrated a decade of successful OPEX and business transformation in partnership with CHAMP Cargosystems. Together, the pair have collaborated on numerous transformative projects to enhance operations and innovations. Members of both companies gathered in Tokyo to commemorate this achievement and highlight the shared accomplishments of the past 10 years. 

The OPEX team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill revealed how it is transforming hiring processes, Russell Gomersall and Caspar Jans recorded a new episode of the BPM360 Podcast live at Celosphere 2024 and FirstPort Group appointed Jo Green as director of OPEX. 

Wishing you all a great end to the week and we’ll be back with more of the latest news headlines next week!