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Process mining as a catalyst for data-driven process improvement
- EIFFEL
Dunea supplies clean, affordable drinking water to nearly 1.4 million people in the western part of South Holland. To keep doing so sustainably and efficiently, the organization continuously looks for ways to design smarter processes. From that ambition arose the need to strengthen process thinking with more data-driven insights.
Process mining is an analytical method that shows how processes actually run, based on data from IT systems. Where KPIs mainly say something about the end result, process mining maps the entire process—including bottlenecks, exceptions, and waste. This helps organizations make well-founded improvement choices, not only based on the outcome at the end of the process, but also on insights into every step in between.
Learning together, growing together
The collaboration between EIFFEL and Dunea started as a small-scale pilot. Dunea wanted to test whether process mining, applied through a user-friendly platform, would truly deliver added value. By choosing accessible tooling, process analysis no longer had to remain the exclusive domain of data specialists, but could gradually be rolled out more broadly across the organization. This enabled more people to get hands-on with data-driven process management.
Eline Krapels, data scientist at Dunea:
“What I see as EIFFEL’s strength is that we truly built this together. Thanks to their agility and their ability to sense what an organization needs at a given moment, we’ve grown to a point where we can now deploy process mining independently across the organization.”
We deliberately worked with four roles: a process mining specialist, a data expert, a process owner, and a process specialist. That setup ensured continuity, buy-in, and lasting learning effects.
Niels Schmitz - Consultant at EIFFEL
In the first projects, the focus was on awareness and exploration: what does process mining look like in practice, and which questions can it help answer? Later, the emphasis shifted to performing analyses independently and integrating insights into the BI environment. The tool makes this easier than working in a data science environment: analyses can be run faster than before, and employees can answer questions themselves—for example about lead times or process variants. By now, Dunea applies process mining independently and actively initiates new projects.
From pilot to process mining reports in production
The approach evolved from manual data analysis to a reproducible and partially automated way of working. Process mining is now embedded at multiple levels within the organization, aligned with the varying maturity levels of teams and processes. Thanks to pragmatic tooling, analyses can be performed faster and with fewer technical barriers. This makes it easier to actively involve the business in the story behind the data and to jointly identify improvement opportunities.
We noticed that we could already perform process mining using data science techniques, but that required a lot of programming time. Now we can run analyses faster and explore processes together with the business by directly clicking through the data. That makes collaboration easier and accelerates process improvements.
Eline Krapels - Data scientist at Dunea
Tangible results with lasting impact
The projects immediately delivered insights into lead times and process variations. These insights were then used to improve processes and enrich dashboards. At the same time, a ripple effect emerged: colleagues became enthusiastic and started exploring possibilities themselves.
“What stuck with me is that after the first project, the next one followed almost automatically. That says everything about the value that was experienced,” Niels explains.
Dunea deliberately chooses to start small, each time with a pilot to test hypotheses. If the insights prove valuable, the next step is deeper analysis and integration into the existing reporting environment. This keeps the approach agile and focused.
Looking ahead
The collaboration with EIFFEL has contributed to increasing data maturity within Dunea. The approach—from pilot to sustainable application—is now being continued by Dunea’s own people. For other (semi-)public organizations, Eline has clear advice:
“Start with a small pilot. If you have questions about a process, process mining is a great way to answer them. Along the way, you’ll discover where the opportunities lie.”
About EIFFEL
EIFFEL helps organizations gain more control over processes, performance, and change initiatives. With process mining, we combine technical expertise with a people-centered approach. Not by doing it for you, but with you—so you can take it further yourself.
