Data-driven process optimization in the aviation industry

Explore the opportunities to improve, transform, and reinvent business processes and operations with Deloitte’s proven data-driven strategies, and learn how other global airlines are leveraging this technology in impactful ways across multiple business areas. The paper describes the key trends and challenges of the aviation industry, as well as our recommendations for viable solutions based on process mining.

In this dynamic world of changing customer expectations, economic instability due to geopolitical unrest, resource scarcity, and volatility as well as climate change, the aviation industry faces new challenges. The sector is not only contending with these global issues but is also witnessing the emergence of innovative business models due to global interconnectedness and travel demand. This transformation is reshaping urban transportation, with new players entering the commercial air mobility market. In addition to these changes, the aviation industry is confronted with the following trends and needs:

• Transition to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
• Impact of environmental activism
• Escalating fuel prices
• Increasing demand for cyber security
• Constant need for fleet modernization
• Establishment of no-flight zones

Faced with these and other underlying factors, companies need to improve their operational excellence, focus on sustainable operations, and make cost reduction a top priority. Data-driven process mining will be an ideal approach to address these challenges and needs in aviation and logistics, as well as countless other industries where complexities and interdependencies define day-to-day operations. 

How can process mining help meet these challenges and transform business models?

The robust methodology of process mining connects data science with process science, merging the event data generated by modern IT systems with advanced process models. We use today’s process mining applications for process discovery, analysis, and modeling, for conformance checking (actual vs. target process) and finally for business process optimization. Much like an x-ray for business processes, process mining gives companies an objective view of exactly what is going on in their process landscape. Furthermore, it garners insights, builds analytical models, ensures compliance, and optimizes business processes, to effectively address the industry’s diverse challenges including post-pandemic volatility, rising customer expectations, and cost-reducing imperatives. Process mining can help aviation companies find solutions and develop new strategies, whether that is improving operational efficiency and sustainability efforts, managing staff shortages, or solving supply bottlenecks in the areas of aircraft acquisition as well as maintenance, repair, and overhaul.

A sample operational core process model OCPM set-up displaying the interrelations and interactions of commercial core processes — Procure to pay (P2P), Accounts Payable (AP), Order to Cash (O2C), Accounts Receivable (AR), etc. — highlighted in different colors:

Thanks to its data-driven approach, process mining can help companies optimize complex and interrelated processes. This makes it predestined for the aviation and logistics industries, where complexity and interdependencies dominate day-to-day business.