The cleanest process is usually built after understanding the messy one deeply.

Clean processes are almost never designed first. They come from working inside the messy version long enough to see what actually matters, which steps carry the risk, and where the exceptions really occur. Trying to design the tidy version in advance produces something that fails on contact with reality. Understanding comes before simplification, not the other way around.

Before streamlining something, spend real time doing it the difficult way. Note where the trouble is. The simplification you design afterward will be based on evidence rather than assumption.