Integrating computer log files for process mining: a genetic algorithm inspired technique

Process mining techniques are applied to single computer log files. But many processes are supported by different software tools and are by consequence recorded into multiple log files. Therefore it would be interesting to find a way to automatically combine such a set of log files for one process. In this paper we describe a technique for merging log files based on a genetic algorithm. We show with a generated test case that this technique works and we give an extended overview of which research is needed to optimise and validate this technique

Requirements towards Effective Process Mining

Process mining is prominent contemporary research topic. This paper describes requirements to be fulfilled for effective practical adoption on the basis of application scenarios and a sample project

A Method to Improve the Early Stages of the Robotic Process Automation Lifecycle

The robotic automation of processes is of much interest to organizations. A common use case is to automate the repetitive manual tasks (or processes) that are currently done by back-office staff through some information system (IS). The lifecycle of any Robotic Process Automation (RPA) project starts with the analysis of the process to automate. This is a very time-consuming phase, which in practical settings often relies on the study of process documentation. Such documentation is typically incomplete or inaccurate, e.g., some documented cases never occur, occurring cases are not documented, or documented cases differ from reality. To deploy robots in a production environment that are designed on such a shaky basis entails a high risk. This paper describes and evaluates a new proposal for the early stages of an RPA project: the analysis of a process and its subsequent design. The idea is to leverage the knowledge of back-office staff, which starts by monitoring them in a non-invasive manner. This is done through a screen-mousekey- logger, i.e., a sequence of images, mouse actions, and key actions are stored along with their timestamps. The log which is obtained in this way is transformed into a UI log through image-analysis techniques (e.g., fingerprinting or OCR) and then transformed into a process model by the use of process discovery algorithms. We evaluated this method for two real-life, industrial cases. The evaluation shows clear and substantial benefits in terms of accuracy and speed. This paper presents the method, along with a number of limitations that need to be addressed such that it can be applied in wider contexts.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-

RALph: A Graphical Notation for Resource Assignments in Business Processes

The business process (BP) resource perspective deals with the management of human as well as non-human resources throughout the process lifecycle. Although it has received increasing attention recently, there exists no graphical notation for it up until now that is both expressive enough to cover well-known resource selection conditions and independent of the BP modelling language. In this paper, we introduce RALph, a graphical notation for the assignment of human resources to BP activities. We define its semantics by mapping this notation to a language that has been formally defined in description logics, which enables its automated analysis. Although we show how RALph can be seamlessly integrated with BPMN, it is noteworthy that the notation is independent of the BP modelling language. Altogether, RALph will foster the visual modelling of the resource perspective in BP

Designing a Process Mining-Enabled Decision Support System for Business Process Standardization in ERP Implementation Projects

Process standardization allows to optimize ERP systems and is a nec-essary step prior to ERP implementation projects. Traditional approaches to standardizing business processes are based on manually created "de-jure" process models, which are distorted, error-prone, simplistic, and often deviating from process reality. Theoretically embedded in the organizational contingency theory as kernel theory, this paper employs a design science approach to design a process mining-enabled decision support system (DSS) which combines bottom-up process mining models with manually added top-down standardization infor-mation to recommend a suitable standard process specification from a repository. Extended process models of the as-is process are matched against a repository of best-practice standard process model using an attributebased process similarity matching algorithm. Thus, the DSS aims to reduce the overall costs of process standardization, to optimize the degree of fit between the organization and the implemented processes, and to minimize the degree of organizational change re-quired in standardization and ERP implementation projects. This paper imple-ments a working prototype instantiation in the open-source process analytics platform Apromore based on a real-life event log and standardization attributes for the Purchase-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash processes from three SAP R/3 ERP systems at the industry partner

Configurable Process Models as a Basis for Reference Modeling

Off-the-shelf packages such as SAP need to be configured to suit the requirements of an organization. Reference models support the configuration of these systems. Existing reference models use rather traditional languages. For example, the SAP reference model uses Eventdriven Process Chains (EPCs). Unfortunately, traditional languages like EPCs do not capture the configuration-aspects well. Consider for example the concept of "choice" in the control-flow perspective. Although any process modeling language, including EPCs, offers a choice construct (e.g., the XOR connector in EPCs), a single construct will not be able to capture the time dimension, scope, and impact of a decision. Some decisions are taken at run-time for a single case while other decisions are taken at build-time impacting a whole organization and all current and future cases. This position paper discusses the need for configurable process models as a basic building block for reference modeling. The focus is on the control-flow perspective. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006

Enhancing workflow-nets with data for trace completion

The growing adoption of IT-systems for modeling and executing (business) processes or services has thrust the scientific investigation towards techniques and tools which support more complex forms of process analysis. Many of them, such as conformance checking, process alignment, mining and enhancement, rely on complete observation of past (tracked and logged) executions. In many real cases, however, the lack of human or IT-support on all the steps of process execution, as well as information hiding and abstraction of model and data, result in incomplete log information of both data and activities. This paper tackles the issue of automatically repairing traces with missing information by notably considering not only activities but also data manipulated by them. Our technique recasts such a problem in a reachability problem and provides an encoding in an action language which allows to virtually use any state-of-the-art planning to return solutions

A SOA-based architecture framework

We present an Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)– based architecture framework. The architecture framework is designed to be close to industry standards, especially to the Service Component Architecture (SCA). The framework is language independent and the building blocks of each system, activities and data, are first class citizens. We present a meta model of the architecture framework and discuss its concepts in detail. Through the framework, concepts of an SOA such as wiring, correlation and instantiation can be clarifie