Lana Labs
Combining ML and Process Mining for Optimal Business Ops

The pace of change in today’s enterprise ecosystem is unfathomable. Technology is at the centre of this change, and it has mandated that organizations shift to a mindset of continuous improvement to keep up with the rest of the market. Process Mining offers organizations the insights needed to visualize the flow of information and the different applications that it taps into along the way. This can help enterprises uncover opportunities to optimize and reduce risk. Leveraging machine learning to augment process mining will considerably shorten up the discovery process leading to a faster time to value. Many companies believe that they know their processes inside and out. Still, patterns may be formed from data hidden below the surface, which can help them focus on the most impactful automation to deliver a strong return on investment. Once intuitive ML is in place, process mining can measure return on investment, monitor processes, and predict future outcomes allowing companies to take a proactive, process-focused approach to transformation. This is the goal of Lana Labs, a specialist in AI-supported analysis of business and production processes. “Our goal is to make companies smarter, more efficient and faster through automated process analysis, which we achieve through our proprietary process mining software LANA, whose complex machine learning algorithm is unique on the market,” states Dan Wucherpfennig, CEO and Managing Director of Lana Labs.

In the world of business and production process analysis, no amount of data is ever enough. Here, highly complex processes involving many systems need to be connected to get the whole event streams. Furthermore, in complex process scenarios, customers spend up to 70 per cent of their time mining a project with data preparation, data gathering, etc., using only 30 per cent of the process projects' time to analyze and make decisions. This translates to 70 per cent of the time spent on prep work, leaving only 30 per cent for useful work. Many enterprises also struggle with the resources required to start process planning, feed resources, or develop their own for a project.

Lana Labs is specialized in processes that flip the data to insights ratio, helping different systems connect and get the full scope view of all the events. Lana Labs enables this using LANA Connect, an ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) tool that simplifies the extraction and transformation of the process data from the IT systems and enables non-technical users with no programming skills to create the required log files on their own. This reduces heavily, the time and resources spent on data preparation. By creating connections between the source data and correlating all the data together in a single events stream, the platform unburdens the resource requirements for businesses. The solution lowers the entry barrier for companies to start with process mining with the unprecedented low amount of resources they would have to invest in.

The Lana Labs solution operates on four pillars. The first being to visualize and analyze data. The platform enables customers to visualize their processes and then compare them to find deviations pertaining to the insights. It also helps ensure that they understand the source of the deviation while the solution’s AI-based root cause analysis, identifies the cause behind it. The second pillar is to monitor and react. After processes have been established, users can monitor the deviations and add trigger points such as processes running late, process steps being skipped, or a wrong order in the process automation. The platform helps view and address any issues with the live status, and with its AI-based prediction engine, it can also tell users how likely it is that things will go wrong again. The third pillar focuses on plan and simulate. Many of Lana Labs' customers use the platform to monitor their core processes. The company is pursuing partnerships with providers of simulation tools that are already known to the industry to enable semi-automatic simulation that customers can then plan within their systems. The final pillar is collaboration and sharing, consisting of the dashboards that will enable users to collaborate and share data between processes. The platform can benchmark the process’s efficiency and then help optimize it for the future.

The critical differentiation of such an advanced platform will only get better with a greater range of adoption. Lana Labs is currently enjoying a great deal of acceptance in the German-speaking region, and in the next 12 to 18 months, wishes to expand to Europe and Asia. The Lana Labs logo is a penguin, and it is more than just a logo. It is a symbol that Process Mining can do even more than just analyze processes. Analysis with the LANA software already improves the resource consumption of globally operating companies, and they help customers work more sustainably. Beyond the technology, some time ago, Lana Labs also wanted to do something for the environment right from the start. It is here that they decided to adopt a Magellan penguin for every customer license, every new partner and every new team member. Over the years, Lana Labs have become the biggest supporter of the penguin colony in Southern Chile. And the penguins have not only found their way into the colony but also into their software, website, and logo. "That’s why we are doubly happy about every additional customer and employee, because they help us to preserve these wonderful animals. Working in the IT industry can be an abstract affair. That’s why we always want to remember that we are part of this world, and that includes the responsibility to care for our environment. We support a climate- and nature-friendly lifestyle. Improve the world—one process at a time!” Their environmental efforts and their commitment to providing quality technology solutions to their clients indicate an ideal that truly sets Lana Labs apart in a class of their own.