15 % Lead Time Improvement Opportunity in Valmet’s Incident Management Process
Valmet, the leading global developer and supplier of process technologies, automation and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries, partnered with Vuono Group to recognise data-driven improvements in their incident handling process and reduce incident backlog. Together, we built a holistic process intelligence solution that utilises Machine Learning and AI and uncovers key insights for shorter resolution times, improved customer satisfaction, and overall incident reduction.
The Challenge
Translating vast amounts of structured and unstructured data into fuel for continuous improvements takes time and is often made in an ad-hoc manner without a guarantee of results. Doing all this at scale, across tens of teams, with ticket volumes reaching 100,000 every year, while also enabling detailed findings, posed a significant challenge.
How We Helped
Our collaboration with Valmet showcases a commitment to driving operational excellence in ITSM processes through data, providing long-term value, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
Phase 1: Proving the Value of Process Mining
Our journey began with a focus on addressing the question: Can process mining generate valuable insights in the first place? First, we scoped the collaboration to analyse a static incident management dataset with process mining tools.
As a conclusion of our first phase, our process mining analysis revealed a collection of detailed findings, constituting an overall 15% improvement opportunity in Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR). We clearly demonstrated the value of process mining in providing actionable insights for developing the process.
“For the first time, we see process mining in action and the concrete value of it, not just PowerPoint slides.”
Our work in the first phase was not purely technical, but also involved making sure stakeholders could understand and validate the relevance of insights and start planning for development actions. Upskilling and training to understand basic process mining concepts and apply the capability in their process context were essential.
Phase 2: The Holistic Process Intelligence Solution
Once we proved the value of process intelligence as a tool to create valuable insights, we set out to build a real-time integrated process mining capability for enabling constant analysis and monitoring. Our work culminated in the realisation of a holistic process intelligence solution, which enables a variety of stakeholders to constantly gain a deep understanding of what happens in the process, and what explains the process performance and deviations from set targets on an actionable level.
Key Achievements at Valmet
Recognising concrete improvement opportunities for MTTR reduction: Uncovered detailed improvement opportunities constituting up to a 15% reduction in Mean Time to Resolve, translating to over 100,000 days per year waiting time for end users. We also concluded a realised value of 22% MTTR improvement (4,000 days saved) when comparing pre- and post-transition periods in a specific incident management area.
Deploying integrated and AI-powered process intelligence capability: We built a self-service process intelligence suite of analytical tools that is in daily use for analysing and monitoring process performance. The capability is based on a robust data pipeline which transforms source system data into the process model and is further enhanced with AI data sets.
Utilising AI solution in Problem and Major Incident identification: AI and Machine Learning enriched data provides valuable insights for Problem and Major Incident management processes, speeding up time to action and enabling recognition of systematic root causes to reduce incidents in the long term. Besides analytical insights, these use cases are further automated back to processes and provide human annotation data to improve AI models.
Technology Approach
At Vuono Group, we are committed to a technology-agnostic approach. It means selecting and using the tools and technologies that best fit the given business goals and challenges, IT landscape and the process development efforts.
With Valmet, we started with raw ServiceNow data and utilising Azure and Fabric, as well as Azure OpenAI Services, as the data foundation. For process intelligence, we utilised Power Automate Process Mining, along with tailored Power BI reports and scorecards to support continuous process analysis. Additionally, we utilised Power Automate and Apps to automate and take action from the insights, and keep the human in the loop for AI suggestions.
About Valmet
Valmet has a global customer base across various process industries. They are a leading global developer and supplier of process technologies, automation and services for the pulp, paper and energy industries, and with their automation and flow control solutions, Valmet serves an even wider base of process industries.