Process mining: discovering workflow models from event-based data

Contemporary workflow management systems are driven by explicit process models, i.e., a completely specified workflow design is required in order to enact a given workflow process. Creating a workflow design is a complicated time-consuming process and typically there are discrepancies between the actual workflow processes and the processes as perceived by the management. Therefore, we propose a technique for process mining. This technique uses workflow logs to discover the workflow process as it is actually being executed. The process mining technique proposed in this paper can deal with noise and can also be used to validate workflow processes by uncovering and measuring the discrepancies between prescriptive models and actual process executions.