Space odyssey for Love, Success and Happiness

Chapter 5 - The fourth Challenge: Integration

If you want to know why the brave asteroid miner Will has to pass this fourth challenge to win the hand of Lilja, the beautiful daughter of the planet ruler, and become the ruler of the most successful planet of this galaxy himself, you should read the introduction and the first three challenges in search of love, happiness and success in the infinite expanses of space: Exposure, Evaluation and Monitoring.

Will had successfully managed to make the process made invisible by digitalization visible again, to underpin it with relevant key figures that allowed the planetary ruler to take the right measures, and also to continuously monitor the changes implemented. But now the ruler wanted more. He had always been a man of action and so he was not going to be satisfied with observing only. He wanted the minor and perhaps major incidents in the processes to be fixed automatically and immediately. "How, pray tell, would that work?" wondered Will. "A self-healing process that prevents small incidents from becoming real problems all by itself. Is that even possible?" he mused, "What would it take?".

Will always had good experience with looking at challenges from other perspectives and allowed his thoughts to wander. At the moment, however, his thoughts were either wandering to the room of expense reports that awaited him if he didn't complete the challenges or to his love Lilja, the beautiful daughter of the planet's ruler. The second thought path was much more pleasant, of course, and he thought of her beautiful eyes, the smart head with long brown hair, and her delicate hands that he loved to hold. And that's when he had the brilliant idea!

He would build a system that was "built" like Lilja. So at least in the figurative sense; perhaps not so beautiful, but equipped with the some similar capabilities. What he already had were the eyes, because his system could see the process. He also had hands, or muscles in the form of the RPA bots and other tools that the Planetary Ruler’s staff had already implemented as stand-alone solutions during the evaluation phase, i.e., during the second challenge, and that could actively do something. What it lacked now was a kind of brain that could detect incidents in the process and then activate the appropriate bots to fix emerging problems. Perhaps "brain" was too big a term. Actually, this component just needed to be a collection of rules. Any number of ideas and concepts flashed through Will's mind, and again he locked himself in his quarters for several days to work quietly on the challenge.?

And just as the planetary ruler began to grow impatient, Will announced that he was ready to present his solution. Will stepped in front of the ruler and presented: "My ruler, in analyzing the process, I have noticed that similar mistakes are made over and over again. This often happens with the best of intentions, for example, if an urgently needed feed needs to be ordered for your favorite carp, then the same employee enters and checks the order. It's faster then, but potential errors go undetected and can be potentially dangerous to your space carp. By regularly analyzing deviations and exceptions in the process, we can gradually uncover any errors. Of course, mistakes will continue to happen in the future, but we have it in perspective and can respond."

The planetary ruler nodded and replied, "I understand that. Thanks to your invention, which you call 'Process Mining,' we no longer miss anything. But I am not concerned with seeing, I am concerned with acting! This happens only manually and therefore too slowly today and if the error you describe happens when ordering feed, it may be too late before we notice it and then the feed may already be on its way or even already fed. So what solution do you propose?"

"My ruler, " Will said, "we will integrate my Process Mining with your existing systems and RPA bots. That way, we get the observability we need from Process Mining's situational awareness, and the actionability we need from the bots' abilities to act. And in between, we integrate a component that I call ‘Knowledge Layer', in which we will store the rules, the exceptions and the corresponding reactions. Now, if the system detects a deviation or an error, and there is a ready-made solution for it, it will be activated without any delay and the process will be corrected again before major problems can occur."

"And what happens if the error is not yet known and there is no ready-made solution for it?" asked the planetary ruler. Will looked at him helplessly and said, "Then I don't know either.".?

The planetary ruler smiled and said, "Will, you have proven that you are a smart man. Whether that is in the genes of the asteroid miners, or whether love for my daughter, or perhaps fear of the travel bills motivated you to his accomplishments, is everyone's guess. As you implement this "automation," you'll be thinking about how we can not only react to indicents, but proactively prevent them altogether. This is my fifth and final challenge for you. If you pass this one, too, you get to marry my daughter and become the new planetary ruler, and I can finally devote all my time to my beloved space carps."

Will knew he was very close to his big goal. But he also knew that this last challenge would be the most difficult. He still had no idea what the solution would be, but he hoped he would find it as he worked to integrate Process Mining and Automation.?

And now, if you want to know whether the brave asteroid miner Will will also overcome the fifth and final challenge, you will find the conclusion of this story of the search for love, happiness and success in the infinite depths and vastness of space at this point tomorrow.