The construction industry is undergoing a long-overdue digital transformation. While Building Information Modeling (BIM), digital twins, and AI attract most of the attention, a quieter revolution is gaining traction: process mining.

Process mining allows firms to visualize, analyze, and optimize their workflows using digital traces already captured by ERP systems, planning tools, or BIM environments.

A typical visualisation of process mining may look like this:

The process flow is generated from event log data. The example shows the actual process that is followed. So not the intended ideal process that management imagined, but the actual process that happened in practise. It provides insight in reality, versus the envisioned theory. Often these event log visualisations bring a lot of insights.

A Clear Business Case

Construction projects are characterized by complex processes affected by scope changes during project. This makes process mining an ideal solution to find inefficiencies and improve on them.

• Clarity: Clear, data-based views of what’s really happening.

• Efficiency: Detects bottlenecks and waste in your processes.

• Risk Reduction: Spot deviations and endless loops before they become costly.

• Informed Decisions: Objective process data guides action.

Real-World Application examples

There have been quite some nice examples on process mining in our industry.

A recent study used process mining in tunnel projects to identify where and why delays occurred—based entirely on data the teams were already collecting.

On change Management for example we found a case study showed real-time change tracking using process mining. The use of Digital Twins in Sustainability integrated process mining for predictive decision-making.

A notable example of Delay Analysis in practice comes from van Schaijk, who applied the technique to analyze several construction projects. By extracting event data from the BIM collaboration platform, they reconstructed the coordination workflows between designers and contractors:

The analysis revealed inefficiencies such as:

• redundant communications,

• extended response times to model changes, and

• cycles of rework that were not visible through traditional reporting.

By visualizing the actual information flows, the project team gained actionable insights into how coordination processes could be streamlined—leading to better turnaround times and fewer design conflicts. This case not only demonstrated the technical feasibility of applying process mining to BIM workflows but also highlighted its strategic value in improving collaboration and project control.

The quiet revolution

Data quality and integration complexity are major barriers in projects. Many teams still rely on meetings and spreadsheets rather than structured actual event logs.

As digital platforms mature and integrate, process mining is becoming more and more standard practise. For construction firms, the value lies in acting early—turning operational data into strategic advantage.

Questions to Reflect On:

• Are you capturing the right data to enable process mining analysis?

• Are you planning your projects using the appropriate systems and data formats to even enable meaningful comparisons between ‘as planned’ and ‘as built’?

• What uncomfortable (recurring) inefficiencies might your data reveal?

• How ready is your team to shift from intuition to evidence?

Process mining is already revolutionizing manufacturing and logistics. The construction industry, with its complexity, might benefit even more. The data is already in your tools. Maybe it’s time to start mining it!

Examples of business gains in actual projects

This section will cover an example on facility management (“We can probably save more money by investing in data analytics than by firing people.”) and systems engineering in the design phase (“the process wasn’t flowing—it was looping”) of a large civil project. It is only available for paid subscribers of this newsletter.

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