Predicting deadline transgressions using event logs

Effective risk management is crucial for any organisation. One of its key steps is risk identification, but few tools exist to support this process. Here we present a method for the automatic discovery of a particular type of process-related risk, the danger of deadline transgressions or overruns, based on the analysis of event logs. We define a set of time-related process risk indicators, i.e., patterns observable in event logs that highlight the likelihood of an overrun, and then show how instances of these patterns can be identified automatically using statistical principles. To demonstrate its feasibility, the approach has been implemented as a plug-in module to the process mining framework ProM and tested using an event log from a Dutch financial institution

Resource Utilization Prediction in Decision-Intensive Business Processes

An appropriate resource utilization is crucial for organizations in order to avoid, among other things, unnecessary costs (e.g. when resources are under-utilized) and too long execution times (e.g. due to excessive workloads, i.e. resource over-utilization). However, traditional process control and risk measurement approaches do not address resource utilization in processes. We studied an often-encountered industry case for providing large-scale technical infrastructure which requires rigorous testing for the systems deployed and identi ed the need of projecting resource utilization as a means for measuring the risk of resource underand over-utilization. Consequently, this paper presents a novel predictive model for resource utilization in decision-intensive processes, present in many domains. In particular, we predict the utilization of resources for a desired period of time given a decision-intensive business process that may include nested loops, and historical data (i.e. order and duration of past activity executions, resource pro les and their experience etc.). We have applied our method using a real business process with multiple instances and presented the outcome.Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) 845638 (SHAPE)Austrian Science Fund (FWF) V 569-N31 (PRAIS

Clustering-Based Predictive Process Monitoring

Business process enactment is generally supported by information systems that record data about process executions, which can be extracted as event logs. Predictive process monitoring is concerned with exploiting such event logs to predict how running (uncompleted) cases will unfold up to their completion. In this paper, we propose a predictive process monitoring framework for estimating the probability that a given predicate will be fulfilled upon completion of a running case. The predicate can be, for example, a temporal logic constraint or a time constraint, or any predicate that can be evaluated over a completed trace. The framework takes into account both the sequence of events observed in the current trace, as well as data attributes associated to these events. The prediction problem is approached in two phases. First, prefixes of previous traces are clustered according to control flow information. Secondly, a classifier is built for each cluster using event data to discriminate between fulfillments and violations. At runtime, a prediction is made on a running case by mapping it to a cluster and applying the corresponding classifier. The framework has been implemented in the ProM toolset and validated on a log pertaining to the treatment of cancer patients in a large hospital

A General Framework for Predictive Business Process Monitoring

Abstract. As organizations gain awareness of the potential business value locked in their process execution event logs, "evidence-based" business process management (BPM) becomes a common tool for process analysts. In contrast to traditional process monitoring techniques which are typically performed using data from running process instances only, predictive evidence-based BPM methods tap also into historical data, to allow process workers to respond, in real-time, to specific process performance issues and compliance violations as they arise or even before they arise. In previous work, various approaches have been proposed to address typical predictive process monitoring problems, such as whether a running process instance will meet its performance targets, or when will an instance be finally finished. However, these approaches are rather ad-hoc and lack generality, as they tackle only particular, pre-defined aspects of predictive monitoring and often only work with specific characteristics of the dataset. The proposed research project aims at developing a general and robust framework for predictive process monitoring that will address a variety of process monitoring tasks such as predicting the outcome of individual activities or of the whole process instance, or predicting the completion path of an instance

Predictive Process Monitoring Methods: Which One Suits Me Best?

Predictive process monitoring has recently gained traction in academia and is maturing also in companies. However, with the growing body of research, it might be daunting for companies to navigate in this domain in order to find, provided certain data, what can be predicted and what methods to use. The main objective of this paper is developing a value-driven framework for classifying existing work on predictive process monitoring. This objective is achieved by systematically identifying, categorizing, and analyzing existing approaches for predictive process monitoring. The review is then used to develop a value-driven framework that can support organizations to navigate in the predictive process monitoring field and help them to find value and exploit the opportunities enabled by these analysis techniques

The Use of Process Mining in Business Process Simulation Model Construction - Structuring the Field

The paper focuses on the use of process mining (PM) to support the construction of business process simulation (BPS) models. Given the useful BPS insights that are available in event logs, further research on this topic is required. To provide a solid basis for future work, this paper presents a structured overview of BPS modeling tasks and how PM can support them. As directly related research efforts are scarce, a multitude of research challenges are identified. In an effort to provide suggestions on how these challenges can be tackled, an analysis of PM literature shows that few PM algorithms are directly applicable in a BPS context. Consequently, the results presented in this paper can encourage and guide future research to fundamentally bridge the gap between PM and BPS

Knowledge Driven Behavioural Analysis in Process Intelligence

InthispaperweillustratehowtheknowledgedrivenBehaviourAnal- ysis, which has been used in the KITE.it process management framework, can support the evolution of analytics from descriptive to predictive. We describe how the methodology uses an iterative three-step process: first the descriptive knowledge is collected, querying the knowledge base, then the prescriptive and predictive knowledge phases allow us to evaluate business rules and objectives, extract unexpected business patterns, and screen exceptions. The procedure is iterative since this novel knowledge drives the definition of new descriptive an- alytics that can be combined with business rules and objectives to increase our level of knowledge on the combination between process behaviour and contex- tual information