Twin Transitions Powered by Event Data. Using Object-Centric Process Mining to Make Processes Digital and Sustainable

Digital transformation plays a major role in realizing sustainability goals. Inefficiencies and a lack of transparency lead to excessive resource usage and carbon emissions. For example, containers are idle over half their lifetime and often shipped empty. Process mining helps to uncover inefficiencies and create transparency. Process discovery can be used to show the actual processes and conformance checking can be used to diagnose deviations. However, traditional process mining focuses on individual cases. To improve sustainability, one needs a more holistic view considering all objects involved. Optimizing the process by focusing on a single object type may lead to unnecessary waste and emissions. Therefore, this keynote papers advocates using Object-Centric Process Mining (OCPM). OCPM considers all objects, events, and their interrelations. OCPM views activities from any perspective using a single source of truth. Data are extracted only once and better reflect the true operations, thus supporting digital transformation. Having a reliable view of the actual operations and their environmental impact is the first step toward avoiding the long-term depletion of natural resources while addressing current needs. Moreover, opportunities to improve sustainability live at the intersections of events and objects. OCPM helps to uncover these opportunities. Therefore, this new form of process mining enables twin transitions that make processes both green and digital.