BYU Student Author: @Jimmy_Han
Reviewers: @Benjamin_Lau , @Dallin_Gardner
Estimated Time to Solve: 20 Minutes
We provide the solution to this challenge using:
- Power Automate
Need a program? (Even if you already have the Power Automate App, you’ll need to download the Power Automate Process Mining App to access process mining capabilities, which are not included in the standard app. You do not need the Power Automate App to solve this challenge.)
- Sign in to Power Automate.
- On the panel to the left, select Process mining.
- At the top of the process mining screen, select Download app.
Power Automate Process Mining is a tool that helps businesses understand how their work is accomplished. Consider it as a detective tool for your company’s tasks. It analyzes the data from your daily activities and presents you with a map of your processes. This map can help you identify areas where operations are slow or where you might be performing unnecessary steps. By recognizing these inefficiencies, you can streamline your work, eliminating unhelpful parts and making your processes faster and more efficient.
Overview
As the new process analyst at a management consulting firm, your first job is to look into how Cougar Hamburger Restaurant does things to help them work faster and better. They’re having some issues that slow down their service and make customers less happy. Your manager first reviewed the case and asked you to dig deeper into certain areas. 1) Find out if the restaurant often has to call customers back to double-check orders. This could mean there’s a problem with how they’re taking orders in the first place. 2) See if they can get their deliveries out quicker by planning the delivery routes right when they get the order, instead of waiting until the food is ready. 3) See if the restaurant often has to remake burgers. Repeating tasks can extend the overall time it takes to serve orders. Your work is all about making sure the restaurant serves their customers faster and more accurately, improving how happy customers are with their service.
Instructions
- Import the Data File into Power Automate. (Although you have Power Automate Process Mining installed, you cannot import the source file directly into the App. Instead, import it through Power Automate’s web cloud.)
a. Sign in to Power Automate.
b. Find ‘Process Mining’ in the left sidebar.
c. Click ‘Start here’ found under ‘Create new process.’ section.
d. Type ‘Hamburger Analysis’ in Process Name and click ‘Continue’. (You do not need to change anything else.)
e. Drop the Data Set into the gray area under ‘Upload File’ and click ‘Next’. (If prompted to log in, please do so.)
f. You will land on ‘Preview file data’ screen, click next.
g. You’ll get to ‘Transform your data’ screen. The data is already tidy. Click Next.
h. Assign an appropriate Attribute type to each Attribute name: ‘Case ID’ for Case identifier, ‘Event Start’ for Timestamp, and ‘Activity’ for Activity. Then click ‘Save and analyze’.
i. Launch the Power Automate Process Mining App. After logging in, you’ll find the process map you’ve just created, marked as “Default”. Click on it to open the process map. - Use the Process Map to answer a few questions.
a. There’s a problem with how Cougar Hamburger taking orders in the first place. How many cases have there been where the restaurant needed to call customers? Check out Hint 1 if you’re stuck.
b. Could Cougar Hamburger cut down on delivery time by planning routes right when orders come in? If you think so, how many minutes can they save for delivery? See Hint 2 for a little help figuring this out.
c. How many times has the activity ‘Start Making Hamburger’ been redone? Refer to Hint 3 if you need help. What steps do you think we should take to decrease the need for remaking hamburgers? (The latter question is open-ended.)
Data Files
Suggestions and Hints
- Slide the ‘Activity’ slider all the way to the right, which you’ll find on the right side of your screen. When this slider is all the way to the left, it only displays the more frequent activities, missing the less common ones. By moving it to the right, you’ll start to see more of these infrequent activities on the process map, allowing you to identify those rare but potentially crucial events. Also, for ease of use, it’s best to keep the ‘Path’ slider to the left. Since our focus is on the activity rather than the paths themselves, it’s best to maintain simplicity in our visualization by excluding less frequent paths.
- To view the average Throughput Time, click on the icon
located on the right side of your screen. Throughput Time represents the duration required to complete one activity from start to finish. In Power Automate, this is referred to as “duration time.” To accurately display the average time each activity takes, ensure you adjust the Metric option from “Total duration” to “Mean duration.” - To view the Rework Count of each activity, click on the icon placed next to
icon that showed in the previous hint. Don’t forget to switch the Metric option to “Rework Count” to display the number of times each activity had to be repeated.
Solution
Solution 3b: To minimize the need to remake hamburgers, we could consider several solutions, such as enhancing employee training, simplifying the menu, and encouraging customers to place orders through our website, among others.
Solution Video: Challenge 189|POWERAUTOMATE – Discover Cougar Hamburger Process