Overview
The Variant DNA calculator analyzes how cases flow through your process by grouping them into process variants. A process variant is a unique sequence of activities that cases follow from start to finish. This calculator provides comprehensive statistics about variant distribution, including frequency counts, percentages, and performance metrics, helping you understand which paths are most common and how they perform.
Common Uses
- Identify the most common process paths to understand typical case flow
- Discover process deviations and non-standard workflows
- Compare performance across different process variants
- Focus process improvement efforts on high-frequency variants
- Detect compliance issues by identifying unexpected process paths
- Understand process complexity by analyzing variant distribution
Settings
There are no specific settings for this calculator beyond the standard title and description fields. The calculator automatically analyzes all cases in your filtered dataset and groups them by their process variant.
Examples
Example 1: Understanding Order Processing Paths
Scenario: You want to understand the different paths orders take through your fulfillment process and identify which paths are most common.
Settings:
- No additional settings required - simply add the calculator to your analysis
Output:
The calculator shows that your process has 45 unique variants:
- Variant 1 (32.5% of cases): Create Order -> Check Inventory -> Ship -> Invoice -> Payment
- Variant 2 (28.3% of cases): Create Order -> Check Inventory -> Backorder -> Ship -> Invoice -> Payment
- Variant 3 (15.2% of cases): Create Order -> Check Inventory -> Ship -> Invoice -> Payment Reminder -> Payment
- Remaining 42 variants (24.0% of cases): Various other paths
Average durations:
- Variant 1: 3.2 days
- Variant 2: 8.5 days (includes backorder delay)
- Variant 3: 12.1 days (includes payment reminder delay)
Insights: The top 3 variants account for 76% of all orders. Variant 2 shows significantly longer duration due to backorder processing, while Variant 3 reveals payment collection issues. This helps prioritize improvement efforts on the inventory management system (Variant 2) and payment reminder process (Variant 3).
Example 2: Compliance Analysis in Invoice Processing
Scenario: You want to verify that invoices are following the approved three-way match process and identify any deviations.
Settings:
- No additional settings required
Output:
The calculator reveals 12 different process variants:
- Variant 1 (68% of cases): Receive Invoice -> Match PO -> Match Receipt -> Approve -> Pay
- Variant 2 (18% of cases): Receive Invoice -> Match PO -> Approve -> Pay (missing receipt match)
- Variant 3 (8% of cases): Receive Invoice -> Approve -> Pay (missing all matching steps)
- Variant 4 (6% of cases): Receive Invoice -> Match PO -> Match Receipt -> Rework -> Match PO -> Approve -> Pay
Average durations:
- Variant 1: 5.2 days (standard process)
- Variant 2: 3.8 days (faster but non-compliant)
- Variant 3: 2.1 days (fastest but highest risk)
- Variant 4: 12.5 days (includes rework)
Insights: Only 68% of invoices follow the compliant three-way match process. The 26% of invoices in Variants 2 and 3 bypass required controls, creating audit risk despite faster processing. The 6% of cases with rework (Variant 4) indicate data quality issues requiring investigation. This analysis helps you enforce compliance while understanding why users bypass controls.
Example 3: Measuring Process Standardization
Scenario: After implementing a process standardization initiative, you want to measure whether cases are following fewer, more standardized paths.
Settings:
- Compare results before and after standardization initiative
Output:
Before standardization:
- 87 unique variants
- Top 5 variants: 45% of cases
- Top 10 variants: 62% of cases
- Average variant duration spread: 4-18 days
After standardization:
- 34 unique variants (61% reduction)
- Top 5 variants: 78% of cases (33 percentage point increase)
- Top 10 variants: 91% of cases (29 percentage point increase)
- Average variant duration spread: 5-9 days (more consistent)
Insights: The standardization initiative successfully reduced process complexity. More cases now follow standardized paths (78% vs 45% in top 5 variants), and performance is more predictable with tighter duration ranges. The remaining 22% of cases following non-standard variants can be analyzed individually to determine if they represent legitimate exceptions or opportunities for further standardization.
Example 4: Identifying Rework Patterns by Variant
Scenario: You want to understand which process paths contain the most rework activities.
Settings:
- No additional settings required
Output:
The calculator identifies variants with repeated activities:
- Variant 1 (40%): Standard path with no rework - 4 activities, 3.2 days average
- Variant 5 (12%): Contains double "Verify Documents" - 6 activities, 8.1 days average
- Variant 8 (8%): Contains triple "Credit Check" - 8 activities, 11.5 days average
- Variant 12 (5%): Contains double "Approve" after rejection - 7 activities, 9.8 days average
Insights: Variants with rework patterns show significantly longer durations. The repeated "Verify Documents" in 12% of cases suggests documentation quality issues. The triple "Credit Check" in 8% of cases indicates either incomplete credit information or changing customer circumstances. By clicking on individual variants, you can drill down to see the specific cases and investigate root causes.
Example 5: Regional Process Variation Analysis
Scenario: You want to compare how different regional offices process the same type of cases.
Settings:
- First, filter to Region A, run Variant DNA
- Then, filter to Region B, run Variant DNA
- Compare the variant distributions
Output:
Region A:
- 15 unique variants
- Top variant: 65% of cases following standard path
- Average duration: 4.5 days
Region B:
- 38 unique variants
- Top variant: 28% of cases following standard path
- Average duration: 7.2 days
Insights: Region A shows much better process standardization with 65% of cases following the same path, while Region B has high process variability. Region B's longer average duration (7.2 days vs 4.5 days) correlates with this lack of standardization. This suggests Region A's practices should be shared with Region B, or Region B may handle more complex case types requiring investigation.
Output
The calculator provides multiple views of variant data:
Variant Table: Displays each variant with the following columns:
- Variant Name: Identifier for the process variant (Variant 1, Variant 2, etc.)
- Count: Number of cases following this variant
- Percent: Percentage of total cases following this variant
- Cumulative Percent: Running total percentage when ordered by frequency (useful for Pareto analysis)
- Average Duration: Mean duration for cases following this variant
Interactive Features:
- Click on a variant: Drill down to see the specific activity sequence and all cases following that variant
- Sort capabilities: Click column headers to sort by frequency, percentage, or duration
- Export options: Export variant data for further analysis in external tools
Variant Details: When you click on a specific variant, you can see:
- The complete activity sequence for that variant
- Individual cases following this path
- Duration distribution for cases in this variant
- Ability to create filters to isolate cases in specific variants
This documentation is part of the mindzie Studio process mining platform.