LEAN on steroids

BOAT (Business Orchestration and Automation) is a new technology class introduced by Gartner. It is considered the future of Business Orchestration and Automation, going beyond RPA, BPA, and Low Code. This technology enables the orchestration of various business processes, automating them while connecting different enterprise applications and enhancing business operations with embedded AI capabilities.

PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is an improvement cycle based on the scientific method. It involves proposing a change in a process, implementing the change, measuring the results, and taking appropriate action. It is also known as the Deming Cycle after W. Edwards Deming. PDCA is the foundation of continuous improvement or kaizen.

Orchestr8 is a new, modern, and genuinely ground-up BOAT technology developed by Insert:Logic. It is a robust general-purpose automation platform built around autonomous orchestration, integration, and AI. Built on open standards, it ensures minimal lock-in as you layer things on top, building and scaling solutions leveraging in-house competence, systems, and data.

This article focuses on how BOAT is a game changer in speeding up learning and improvement in a company using autonomous orchestration, integration, and embedded AI.

For more about BOAT, how it is implemented, and how it can streamline your core business processes, read more here.

Introduction 

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently (or improving) that which should not be done at all."

Peter Drucker

Why do we run our business on autopilot, making the same mistakes year after year? Why do we keep fixing things we should not do in the first place? Why do suggestions for improvements take so long and tend to pile up? Why are we continuously struggling with poor data quality? Why do we need to put so much effort into rework and replanning? Why do our traditional improvement initiatives rarely stick? 

Running complex business operations is not a walk in the park, and many challenges hinder us from improving rapidly: legacy systems, data overload, siloed departments, culture, well-established way of doing things, strict regulations and compliance requirements, being too busy with day-to-day work, and so on.

However, BOAT introduces a new operating regime, eliminating many of the traditional challenges slowing down improvement. Let's examine this more systematically using the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) approach.

Check

With BOAT, your end-to-end core processes are autonomously orchestrated across systems and organizational silos. This also means you have a "digital twin" of your processes that gathers data from everything being done - every individual case processed. The embedded AI engine uses this data to check, evaluate, learn, and suggest improvements in real time. This includes corrective tasks and suggestions for improvement by the people involved. Autonomous orchestration ensures that these suggestions are routed to the right role(s) for decision and execution. What was previously a slow, cumbersome, and often time and resource-intensive improvement process now happens quickly, precisely, and efficiently.

The AI engine routes improvement suggestions to me when relevant and within my area of responsibility. I can quickly accept, adjust, or reject them (or involve others if necessary). This is now part of my day-to-day work—our way of working. The measurable effects are amazing. 

We are now systematically improving data quality, eliminating everything that has no value, and laying the foundation for doing the right things the right way at the right time.

"Imagine learning and improving from every hip surgery, maintenance activity, subsea engineering project, ship journey, drilling operation, insurance case/profile, trading position, (...) continuously."

Now the Check loop is spinning. Improvement is no longer ad hoc and requires significant effort. BOAT checks everything continuously, filtering out what's relevant, and orchestrates the workflow from start to finish by involving the appropriate role(s) and systems case by case.

Act

The AI-generated improvement proposal was automatically sent to the appropriate role or function, evaluated, and either accepted, changed, or rejected in the Check step.
Based on the outcome, BOAT updates the relevant underlying systems and orchestrates the workflow if people need to be informed or take action following the decision to improve. The feedback from this process helps the embedded AI engine to learn and improve. 

Business rules can perform The Act step automatically if human involvement is considered unnecessary.

Now, the Act loop is spinning. We continuously learn and adjust, making our systems increasingly accurate and ensuring that we only carry out the right actions in the right way and at the right time.

Plan

Gradually, planning complexity is reduced as BOAT helps the organization weed out everything that does not make sense, freeing up time and resources to focus on the activities that create value.

As new or existing plan components need to be added or changed, BOAT and the embedded AI engine support the planning function through dynamic optimization and execution of the plan. In this case, dynamic means that BOAT continuously optimizes based on multiple triggers and changes. Execution means updating every system and informing everyone involved who needs to know or do something based on changes in the plan.

Now, the Planning loop is spinning. Fewer plan components (the right ones) in combination with AI-assisted dynamic planning have exponential effects.

Do

Finally, the organization can feel the shift— how things are flowing. It's well-prepared, things are correct, the working day is more efficient (and meaningful), and everyone is involved and making a difference.

Now we are talking! Things are right; I can be much more productive, and it's easy for everyone to engage and make suggestions for improvement. Within hours/days, it's processed and implemented. This feeling of making a difference has spread throughout the whole operational organization. A collective power of great value is mobilized.

The four improvement loops in the PDCA cycle and the cycle as a whole are currently operating at a pace that will be challenging for your competitors to match.

 

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