The use of process mining in a business process simulation context: Overview and challenges

This paper focuses on the potential of process mining to support the construction of business process simulation (BPS) models. To date, research efforts are scarce and have a rather conceptual nature. Moreover, publications fail to explicit the complex internal structure of a simulation model. The current paper outlines the general structure of a BPS model. Building on these foundations, modeling tasks for the main components of a BPS model are identified. Moreover, the potential value of process mining and the state of the art in literature are discussed. Consequently, a multitude of promising research challenges are identified. In this sense, the current paper can guide future research on the use of process mining in a BPS context.

[1]  E. Pronin,et al.  Perception and misperception of bias in human judgment , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[2]  Jorge Alvarado,et al.  Combination of Process Mining and Simulation Techniques for Business Process Redesign: A Methodological Approach , 2012, SIMPDA.

[3]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Analyzing Resource Behavior Using Process Mining , 2009, Business Process Management Workshops.

[4]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Towards comprehensive support for organizational mining , 2008, Decis. Support Syst..

[5]  Moe Thandar Wynn,et al.  Workflow Simulation for Operational Decision Support Using Design, Historic and State Information , 2008, BPM.

[6]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Discovering colored Petri nets from event logs , 2007, International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer.

[7]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Process Mining - Discovery, Conformance and Enhancement of Business Processes , 2011 .

[8]  N. R. T. P. van Beest,et al.  A Process Mining Approach to Redesign Business Processes - A Case Study in Gas Industry , 2007, Ninth International Symposium on Symbolic and Numeric Algorithms for Scientific Computing (SYNASC 2007).

[9]  Ricardo Seguel,et al.  Process Mining Manifesto , 2011, Business Process Management Workshops.

[10]  Randall P. Sadowski,et al.  Simulation with Arena , 1998 .

[11]  N Melão,et al.  Use of business process simulation: A survey of practitioners , 2003, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[12]  S. Vincent.  Input Data Analysis , 2007 .

[13]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Business Process Simulation Survival Guide , 2015, Handbook on Business Process Management.

[14]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Generating Event Logs with Workload-Dependent Speeds from Simulation Models , 2012, CAiSE Workshops.

[15]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Discovering simulation models , 2009, Inf. Syst..

[16]  Stewart Robinson,et al.  Conceptual modelling for simulation Part I: definition and requirements , 2008, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[17]  Mathias Weske,et al.  Bridging abstraction layers in process mining , 2014, Inf. Syst..

[18]  Averill M. Law,et al.  Simulation Modeling and Analysis , 1982 .

[19]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  Activity Mining by Global Trace Segmentation , 2009, Business Process Management Workshops.

[20]  Wil M.P. van der Aalst,et al.  Business process simulation , 2010, BPM 2010.

[21]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  The Application of Petri Nets to Workflow Management , 1998, J. Circuits Syst. Comput..

[22]  Jerry Banks,et al.  Handbook of simulation - principles, methodology, advances, applications, and practice , 1998, A Wiley-Interscience publication.

[23]  N. R. T. P. van Beest,et al.  Redesigning business processes: a methodology based on simulation and process mining techniques , 2009, Knowledge and Information Systems.

[24]  Kerim Tumay.  Business process simulation , 1995, WSC '95.