This week in process excellence

Another busy week draws to a close as we round up the top process excellence news stories from around the globe.

On Monday, our Research & Reports bulletin featured new data from Colt Technology Services indicating that artificial intelligence (AI) AI regulation, sustainability-driven innovation and a ‘coming of age’ for Network as a Service (NaaS) will dominate chief information officer (CIO) agendas over the next 12 months. The firm surveyed more than 1000 global technology leaders, finding that businesses are looking to global regulators to provide guidance and clarity around AI as more use cases emerge and countries have a clearer understanding of business and societal impact. What’s more, organizations are seeking ways to use AI wisely, sustainably and responsibly, with 64 percent of respondents stating that AI plays a role in supporting or facilitating their environmental impact and governance strategy.

Meanwhile, Vinicius Stein Dani , a researcher at Utrecht University , delved into the “dark side” of process mining, revealing the key reasons why process mining initiatives fail. Dubbed “terminators,” these are: laborious data preparation, loss of interest, lack of expertise, lack of incentive and denial.

Elsewhere, Gartner warned that many supply chain reorganizations suffer from at least one of three critical organizational design mistakes that can derail their efforts to achieve critical business outcomes, while separate findings revealed that manufacturers are falling behind on digital transformation due to “option paralysis” and an inability to capitalize on industry advancements.

On Wednesday, our Vendor news examined the latest updates from industry technology and service providers. Technology giant and process mining provider IBM unveiled breakthrough research in optics technology that could “dramatically improve” how data centers train and run generative AI models. IBM researchers pioneered a new process for co-packaged optics (CPO), the next generation of optics technology, to enable connectivity within data centers at the speed of light through optics to complement existing short reach electrical wires. The technology could significantly increase the bandwidth of data center communications, minimizing GPU downtime while accelerating AI processing.

In other news, financial technology solutions company SBS announced a new collaboration with enterprise open-source solutions provider Red Hat to accelerate digital transformation for global financial institutions and Esker U.S. entered a new referral partnership deal with AI for Business for both its source-to-pay and order-to-cash solutions. Elsewhere, information system vendor Workday elected Liz Centoni , executive vice-president and chief customer experience officer at Cisco , to its board of directors and intelligent document processing (IDP) vendor ABBYY opened the ABBYY Trust Center, a centralized platform designed to support reliable AI.

On Friday, our Community news recognized Avelo Airlines in leading the US airline industry in operational reliability heading into the busy December holiday travel season. According to aviation data services company Anuvu , Avelo ranks number one in on-time performance and is achieving the lowest flight cancellation rate in the industry. Through the first 11 months of 2024, 85.2 percent of the airline’s flights arrived at their destinations within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. Delta Air Lines and United Airlines ranked second and third with on-time arrival rates of 82.1 percent and 78.7 percent, respectively. “Few things are more frustrating to travelers – especially during the holidays – than long flight delays and cancellations. At Avelo we understand this and have a shared passion across our team for uncompromising operational excellence (OPEX),” said Andrew Levy , founder and CEO of Avelo Airlines .

Another airline – German firm Condor Flugdienst GmbH – made the headlines too, announcing the details of a new partnership with Interfacing Technologies Corporation to drive process excellence and digital transformation. Elsewhere, experts asked whether business process mining (BPM) has the power to help prevent stress and burnout. Speaking on the latest episode of the New Process Podcast , Dr Eugene (Yevgen) Bogodistov , MCI | The Entrepreneurial School® in Austria, explained that, by listening to the feelings of the people working in the process as early as possible, leaders can minimize the stress level of their daily work, which can prevent burnout at an early stage.

In other news, the AEIC (Association of Edison Illuminating Companies) launched a new non-profit organization called the Center for Operational Excellence (Ops Center), described as a “one-stop resource” for authoritative information to empower the electric utility industry to overcome operational challenges and harness new opportunities. Meanwhile, Alec Denby , head of global OPEX at travel retailer Avolta , shared insights on how mystery shopping – where a company measures its own quality of sales and service by having a researcher pose as a customer and report their experience – enhances operational standards and improves customer satisfaction. Finally, Hospitality management company Davidson Hospitality Group announced two new leadership hires to drive OPEX and growth in the hospitality industry. Brad Barnett was named SVP of sales for the company’s lifestyle operating division, Pivot, while Michael Yousif was promoted to SVP of acquisitions and business development

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