Boudewijn F. van Dongen

Process Mining Manifesto

Process mining techniques are able to extract knowledge from event logs commonly available in today’s information systems. These techniques provide new means to discover, monitor, and improve processes in a variety of application domains. There are two main drivers for the growing interest in process mining. On the one hand, more and more events are being recorded, thus, providing detailed information about the history of processes. On the other hand, there is a need to improve and support business processes in competitive and rapidly changing environments. This manifesto is created by the IEEE Task Force on Process Mining and aims to promote the topic of process mining. Moreover, by defining a set of guiding principles and listing important challenges, this manifesto hopes to serve as a guide for software developers, scientists, consultants, business managers, and end-users. The goal is to increase the maturity of process mining as a new tool to improve the (re)design, control, and support of operational business processes.

Replaying history on process models for conformance checking and performance analysis

Process mining techniques use event data to discover process models, to check the conformance of predefined process models, and to extend such models with information about bottlenecks, decisions, and resource usage. These techniques are driven by observed events rather than hand‐made models. Event logs are used to learn and enrich process models. By replaying history using the model, it is possible to establish a precise relationship between events and model elements. This relationship can be used to check conformance and to analyze performance. For example, it is possible to diagnose deviations from the modeled behavior. The severity of each deviation can be quantified. Moreover, the relationship established during replay and the timestamps in the event log can be combined to show bottlenecks. These examples illustrate the importance of maintaining a proper alignment between event log and process model. Therefore, we elaborate on the realization of such alignments and their application to conformance checking and performance analysis.

Measuring Similarity between Business Process Models

Quality aspects become increasingly important when business process modeling is used in a large-scale enterprise setting. In order to facilitate a storage without redundancy and an efficient retrieval of relevant process models in model databases it is required to develop a theoretical understanding of how a degree of behavioral similarity can be defined. In this paper we address this challenge in a novel way. We use causal footprintsas an abstract representation of the behavior captured by a process model, since they allow us to compare models defined in both formal modeling languages like Petri nets and informal ones like EPCs. Based on the causal footprint derived from two models we calculate their similarity based on the established vector space model from information retrieval. We validate this concept with an experiment using the SAP Reference Model and an implementation in the ProM framework.

Supporting Flexible Processes through Recommendations Based on History

In todays fast changing business environment flexible Process Aware Information Systems (PAISs) are required to allow companies to rapidly adjust their business processes to changes in the environment. However, increasing flexibility in large PAISs usually leads to less guidance for its users and consequently requires more experienced users. To allow for flexible systems with a high degree of support, intelligent user assistance is required. In this paper we propose a recommendation service, which, when used in combination with flexible PAISs, can support end users during process execution by giving recommendations on possible next steps. Recommendations are generated based on similar past process executions by considering the specific optimization goals. In this paper we also evaluate the proposed recommendation service, by means of experiments.

XES, XESame, and ProM 6

Process mining has emerged as a new way to analyze business processes based on event logs. These events logs need to be extracted from operational systems and can subsequently be used to discover or check the conformance of processes. ProM is a widely used tool for process mining. In earlier versions of ProM, MXML was used as an input format. In future releases of ProM, a new logging format will be used: the eXtensible Event Stream (XES) format. This format has several advantages over MXML. The paper presents two tools that use this format - XESame and ProM 6 - and highlights the main innovations and the role of XES. XESame enables domain experts to specify how the event log should be extracted from existing systems and converted to XES. ProM 6 is a completely new process mining framework based on XES and enabling innovative process mining functionality.

Process Discovery Using Integer Linear Programming

The research domain of process discovery aims at constructing a process model (e.g. a Petri net) which is an abstract representation of an execution log. Such a model should (1) be able to reproduce the log under consideration and (2) be independent of the number of cases in the log. In this paper, we present a process discovery algorithm where we use concepts taken from the language-based theory of regions, a well-known Petri net research area. We identify a number of shortcomings of this theory from the process discovery perspective, and we provide solutions based on integer linear programming.

On the role of fitness, precision, generalization and simplicity in process discovery

Process discovery algorithms typically aim at discovering process models from event logs that best describe the recorded behavior. Often, the quality of a process discovery algorithm is measured by quantifying to what extent the resulting model can reproduce the behavior in the log, i.e. replay fitness. At the same time, there are many other metrics that compare a model with recorded behavior in terms of the precision of the model and the extent to which the model generalizes the behavior in the log. Furthermore, several metrics exist to measure the complexity of a model irrespective of the log.

Process Mining: Overview and Outlook of Petri Net Discovery Algorithms

Within the research domain of process mining, process discovery aims at constructing a process model as an abstract representation of an event log. The goal is to build a model (e.g., a Petri net) that provides insight into the behavior captured in the log. The theory of regions can be used to transform a state-based model or a set of words into a Petri net that exactly mimics the behavior given as input. Recently several papers appeared on the application of the theory of regions for process discovery. This paper provides an overview of different Petri net based discovery algorithms from both the area of process mining and the theory of regions. The overview encompasses five categories of algorithms, for which common assumptions and problems are indicated. Furthermore, based on the shortcomings of the algorithms in each category, a set of directions for future research in the process discovery area is discussed.

Process mining framework for software processes

Software development processes are often not explicitly modelled and sometimes even chaotic. In order to keep track of the involved documents and files, engineers use Software Configuration Management (SCM) systems. Along the way, those systems collect and store information on the software process itself. Thus, SCM information can be used for constructing explicit process models, which is called software process mining. In this paper we show that (1) a Process Mining Framework can be used for obtaining software process models as well as for analysing and optimising them; (2) an algorithmic approach, which arose from our research on software processes, is integrated in the framework.

Process mining based on clustering: a quest for precision

Process mining techniques attempt to extract non-trivial and useful information from event logs recorded by information systems. For example, there are many process mining techniques to automatically discover a process model based on some event log. Most of these algorithms perform well on structured processes with little disturbances. However, in reality it is difficult to determine the scope of a process and typically there are all kinds of disturbances. As a result, process mining techniques produce spaghetti-like models that are difficult to read and that attempt to merge unrelated cases. To address these problems, we use an approach where the event log is clustered iteratively such that each of the resulting clusters corresponds to a coherent set of cases that can be adequately represented by a process model. The approach allows for different clustering and process discovery algorithms. In this paper, we provide a particular clustering algorithm that avoids over-generalization and a process discovery algorithm that is much more robust than the algorithms described in literature [1]. The whole approach has been implemented in ProM.