Chapter 11: Process Monitoring

Contents
1. Performance Dashboards
2. Introduction to Process Mining
3. Automated Process Discovery
4. Process Performance Mining
5. Conformance Checking
6. Variants Analysis
7. Process Mining in Practice
8. Recap

SEITE 1
 Process Analysis in the BPM Lifecycle

Management Processes

Process Define Vision Develop Strategy Implement

Strategy
Manage Risk

les for BPM lifecycle and process mining identification Core Processes

Procure Procure Market Deliver

Manage
Customer
Materials Products Products Products
Service

35h B 30h Support Processes

15h Process architecture Manage Personnel

Manage
Information Manage Assets

A E
D
5m 3m 5m 10m 30m 2h 10m

15m
C
1.5h 10min
Conformance and Process As-is process
performance
discovery model
insights

A B C D E

Process Process
monitoring analysis

Executable Insights on
process weaknesses and
model their impact

Process Process
implementation To-be process redesign
model
Business Process Monitoring Techniques

Statistics-Based Techniques
Performance Dashboards

Enterprise
System

Model-Based Techniques
Event Process Mining
Database log
Chapter 11: Process Monitoring

Contents
1. Performance Dashboards
2. Introduction to Process Mining
3. Automated Process Discovery
4. Process Performance Mining
5. Conformance Checing
6. Variants Analysis
7. Process Mining in Practice
8. Recap

SEITE 4
Types of process dashboards

Process
Dashboards

Operational Tactical Strategic

dashboards dashboards dashboards
(runtime) (historical) (historical)
Operational process dashboards

 Aimed at process workers & operational managers

 Emphasis on monitoring (detect-and-respond), e.g.:
- Work-in-progress
- Problematic cases – e.g. overdue/at-risk cases
- Resource load
Tactical dashboards

 Aimed at process owners / managers

 Emphasis on analysis and management
 E.g. detecting bottlenecks
 Typical process performance indicators
 Cycle times
 Error rates
 Resource utilization
Tactical Performance Dashboard
@ Australian Insurer
Strategic dashboards

 Aimed at executives & managers

 Emphasis on linking process performance to strategic objectives
Strategic Performance Dashboard
@ Australian Utilities Provider

Manage Manage Manage Work Manage

Process
Unplanned Emergencies & Programming & Procurement
Outages Disasters Resourcing
Key Performance
Customer 0.5 0.55 - 0.2
Satisfaction

Customer 0.6 - - 0.5

Complaint

Customer 0.4 - - 0.8

Feedback

Connection Less 0.3 0.6 0.7 -

Than Agreed Time
 Process: Manage Procurement 0.67

Process: Manage Emergencies & Disasters 0.58

Process: Manage Unplanned Outages

Overall Process Performance

0.54

1st Layer Customer Operational Risk Health

Financial People
Key Result Excellence Excellence Management & Safety
Area 0.5 0.4 0.65 0.5 0.8 0.4

2nd Layer Customer Customer

Key Performance Complaint Satisfaction
0.6 0.7

Customer Customer Average Time

Rating (%) Loyalty Index Spent on Plan
3rd & 4th Layer
Process Performance 0.7 0.6 0.8
Measures
Satisfied Market
Customer Index Share (%)
0.4 0.8
Teamwork

Sketch operational and tactical process monitoring dashboards for CVS Pharmacy’s
prescription fulfillment process (See Chapter 1, Exercise 1.6).
Consider the viewpoints of each stakeholder in the process.
• Customer
• Pharmacist
• Technician
• Process owner (overseeing 500+ pharmacies distributed geographically)
Chapter 11: Process Monitoring

Contents
1. Performance Dashboards
2. Introduction to Process Mining
3. Automated Process Discovery
4. Process Performance Mining
5. Conformance Checing
6. Variants Analysis
7. Process Mining in Practice
8. Recap

SEITE 14
Business Process Monitoring
Dashboards &
reports

Event Process mining

stream Event
DB logs log
 Process Mining

Discovery
discovered model

Performanc Deviance
e
event log
Enhanced model Difference
diagnostics
event log’

Conformance /

input model
16
Event logs structure: minimum requirements

Concrete formats:
• Comma-Separated Values (CSV)
• XES (XML format)
Chapter 11: Process Monitoring

Contents
1. Performance Dashboards
2. Introduction to Process Mining
3. Automated Process Discovery
4. Process Performance Mining
5. Conformance Checking
6. Variants Analysis
7. Process Mining in Practice
8. Recap

SEITE 18
Automated Process Discovery

CID Task Time Stamp …

13219 Enter Loan Application 2007-11-09 T 11:20:10 -

13219 Retrieve Applicant Data 2007-11-09 T 11:22:15 -

13220 Enter Loan Application 2007-11-09 T 11:22:40 -

13219 Compute Installments 2007-11-09 T 11:22:45 -

13219 Notify Eligibility 2007-11-09 T 11:23:00 -

13219 Approve Simple Application 2007-11-09 T 11:24:30 -

13220 Compute Installements 2007-11-09 T 11:24:35 -

… … … …
Notify
Retrieve Rejection
Applicant
Data
Enter Loan
Application
Approve
Compute Simple
Installments Application
Notify
Eligibility
Approve
Complex
Application
19
 Process Mining Tools

Lightweigh
Open-source Mid-range Heavyweight
t

•Apromore •Disco •Minit •ARIS Process

•ProM •myInvenio Performance
•QPR Process Manager
Analyzer •Celonis Process
•Signavio Process Mining
Intelligence •Perceptive Process
•StereoLOGIC Mining (Lexmark)
Discovery Analyst •Interstage Process
•Lana Labs Discovery (Fujitsu)

20
[Link]
 Fluxicon Disco

22
Process Maps
(a.k.a. Directly-Follows Graphs)

 A process map of an event log is a graph where:

 Each activity is represented by one node
 An arc from activity A to activity B means that B is directly followed by A in at
least one trace in the log
 Arcs in a process map can be annotated with:
 Absolute frequency: how many times B directly follows A?
 Relative frequency: in what percentage of times when A is executed, it is
directly followed by B?
 Time: What is the average time between the occurrence of A and the
occurrence of B? (cf. performance mining)

23
Process Maps – Example

Event log:
10: a,b,c,g,e,h
10: a,b,c,f,g,h
10: a,b,d,g,e,h
10: a,b,d,e,g,h
10: a,b,e,c,g,h
10: a,b,e,d,g,h
10: a,c,b,e,g,h
10: a,c,b,f,g,h
10: a,d,b,e,g,h
10: a,d,b,f,g,h

24
 Process Maps – Exercise

Case Case
ID Task Name Originator Timestamp ID Task Name Originator Timestamp

1 File Fine Anne 20-07-2004 14:00:00 3 Reminder John 21-08-2004 10:00:00

2 File Fine Anne 20-07-2004 15:00:00 2 Process Payment system 22-08-2004 09:05:00

1 Send Bill system 20-07-2004 15:05:00 2 Close case system 22-08-2004 09:06:00

2 Send Bill system 20-07-2004 15:07:00 4 Reminder John 22-08-2004 15:10:00

3 File Fine Anne 21-07-2004 10:00:00 4 Reminder Mary 22-08-2004 17:10:00

3 Send Bill system 21-07-2004 14:00:00 4 Process Payment system 29-08-2004 14:01:00

4 File Fine Anne 22-07-2004 11:00:00 4 Close Case system 29-08-2004 17:30:00

4 Send Bill system 22-07-2004 11:10:00 3 Reminder John 21-09-2004 10:00:00

Process
1 Payment system 24-07-2004 15:05:00 3 Reminder John 21-10-2004 10:00:00

1 Close Case system 24-07-2004 15:06:00 3 Process Payment system 25-10-2004 14:00:00

2 Reminder Mary 20-08-2004 10:00:00 3 Close Case system 25-10-2004 14:01:00

25
Process Maps in Disco

 Disco (and other commercial process mining tools) use process maps to visualize
event logs
 It also provides operations to filter the process map:
 By activities
 By paths

26
 Abstraction and Filtering

 To cope with the complexity of large real-life logs, process maps are often used
in conjunction with two operations:
1. Abstract the process map:
 Show only most frequent activities
 Show only most frequent arcs
2. Filter the traces in the event log
 Remove traces that fulfil a condition (or traces that do not fulfil a condition)

27
Raw process maps of a real-life log
(In Celonis)

28
Abstracted map
(In Celonis)
90% of node abstraction, 98% arc abstraction

29
Filtering

Four types of common filters on event logs:

 Event filters
 Retain only events that fulfil a given condition (e.g. all events of type “Create
purchase order”)
 Or retain only traces that contain a given event (e.g. only traces that contain evemt
“Cancel purchase order”)
 Performance filter
 Retain traces that have a duration above or below a given value
 Event pair filter (a.k.a. “follower” filter)
 Retain traces where there is a pair of events that fulfil a given condition (e.g. “Create
invoice” followed by “Create purchase order”)
 Endpoint filter
 Retain traces that start with or finish with an event that fulfils a given condition

30
Discovering (BPMN) Process Models

• Alpha miner (α-miner)

• Simple, limited, not robust
• Heuristics miner
• Robust to noise, fast, often a good tradeoff but can produce incorrect
models
• Inductive miner (ProM v6)
• Ensures that models are block-structured & correct
• Structured miner (Apromore)
• Improves heuristics miner to produce maximally block-structured
process models

31
α-miner
Basic Idea: Ordering relations

case 1 : task A
• Direct succession: case 2 : task A
x>y iff for some case 3 : task A ABCD
case 3 : task B
case x is directly case 1 : task B ACBD
followed by y. case 1 : task C
case 2 : task C EF
• Causality: xy iff case 4 : task A
case 2 : task B
x>y and not y>x. ...
• Parallel: x||y iff x>y
and y>x
A>B
• Unrelated: x#y iff A>C
not x>y and not y>x. B>C A B
B||C
B>D A C
C||B
C>B B D
C>D
CD
E>F
E F

32
Basic Idea: Example

33
Basic Idea: Example

34
Basic Idea: Footprints

35
α-Algorithm

 Idea (a)


ab
α-Algorithm

 Idea (b)


a b, a c and b # c
α-Algorithm

 Idea (c)


b d, c d and b # c
α-Algorithm

 Idea (d)


a b, a c and b || c
α-Algorithm

 Idea (e)


b d, c d and b || c
 Process Model Discovery – Exercise
Case Case
ID Task Name Originator Timestamp ID Task Name Originator Timestamp

1 File Fine Anne 20-07-2004 14:00:00 3 Reminder John 21-08-2004 10:00:00

2 File Fine Anne 20-07-2004 15:00:00 2 Process Payment system 22-08-2004 09:05:00

1 Send Bill system 20-07-2004 15:05:00 2 Close case system 22-08-2004 09:06:00

2 Send Bill system 20-07-2004 15:07:00 4 Reminder John 22-08-2004 15:10:00

3 File Fine Anne 21-07-2004 10:00:00 4 Reminder Mary 22-08-2004 17:10:00

3 Send Bill system 21-07-2004 14:00:00 4 Process Payment system 29-08-2004 14:01:00

4 File Fine Anne 22-07-2004 11:00:00 4 Close Case system 29-08-2004 17:30:00

4 Send Bill system 22-07-2004 11:10:00 3 Reminder John 21-09-2004 10:00:00

Process
1 Payment system 24-07-2004 15:05:00 3 Reminder John 21-10-2004 10:00:00

1 Close Case system 24-07-2004 15:06:00 3 Process Payment system 25-10-2004 14:00:00

2 Reminder Mary 20-08-2004 10:00:00 3 Close Case system 25-10-2004 14:01:00

41
Limitations of alpha miner

Completeness
All possible traces of the process (model)
need to be in the log

Self-loops
b>b and not b>b implies bb (impossible!)

Short loops
c>b and b>c implies c||b and b||c
instead of cb and bc
Heuristic Miner

Process
Map
Heuristic Miner
Heuristic Miner
Heuristic Miner

What’s the
correspondi
ng process
model?

46
Automated Process Discovery

Simplicity
minimal size & structural
complexity

Generalization Automated Precision

parses traces of the process does not parse
process not discovery traces not in the
included in the log method log

Fitness
parses the traces of the log
47
 Accuracy of Automated Process Discovery

Lack of
generalization

Process

Lack of Model
precision Lack of
fitness

Log

48
Process Discovery Algorithms:
The Two Worlds

High-Fitness High-Fitness
High-Precision Low-Complexity
Heuristic
Miner

Fodina Miner
Process Model discovered with Heuristics
Miner
Process Model discovered with
Inductive Miner

 Structured by construction
 Based on process tree
Process Discovery Algorithms:
The Two Worlds

High-Fitness High-Fitness
High-Precision Low-Complexity
Heuristic Inductive
Miner Miner

Evolutionary
Fodina Miner
Tree Miner
Process Model discovered with
Structured Miner
Process Discovery Algorithms

High-Fitness
High-Precision
Low-Complexity

Structured Miner
Automated Process Discovery
Structured Miner + Subprocess Identification

[Link]
Chapter 11: Process Monitoring

Contents
1. Performance Dashboards
2. Introduction to Process Mining
3. Automated Process Discovery
4. Process Performance Mining
5. Conformance Checking
6. Variants Analysis
7. Process Mining in Practice
8. Recap

SEITE 56
Visual Process Performance Mining
Techniques

 Dotted charts
 One line per trace, each line contains points, one point per event
 Each event type is mapped to a colour
 Position of the point denotes its occurrence time (in a relative scale)
 Birds-eye view of the timing of different events (e.g. activity end times), but does not
allow one to see the “processing” times of activities
 Timeline diagrams
 One line per trace, each line contains segments capturing the start and end of tasks
 Captures process time (unlike dotted charts)
 Not scalable for large event logs – good to show “representative” traces
 Performance-enhanced process maps
 Process maps where nodes are colour-coded with respect to a performance measure.
Typically edge colour denotes waiting time, node colour denotes processing time.
 Nodes may represent activities (default option)
 But they may represent resources and then arcs denote hands-offs between resources
Dotted chart

SLIDE 58
Timeline diagram

SLIDE 59
Performance-enhanced process map
Nodes are activities (default)

SLIDE 60
Screenshot of Disco
Performance-enhanced process map
Nodes are tasks (handoff graph)

SLIDE 61
Screenshot of MyInvenio
Chapter 11: Process Monitoring

Contents
1. Performance Dashboards
2. Introduction to Process Mining
3. Automated Process Discovery
4. Process Performance Mining
5. Conformance Checking
6. Variants Analysis
7. Process Mining in Practice
8. Recap

SEITE 62
Conformance Checking

63
Conformance Checking:
Unfitting vs. Additional Behavior

Event
log:
ABCDEH
ACBDEH
ABCDFH
ACBDFH
ABDEH
Unfitting behaviour: ABDFH
 Task C is optional (i.e. may be skipped) in the log
Additional behavior:
 The cycle including IGDF is not observed in the log
 Conformance Checking in Apromore

Full demo at:

[Link]
65
Chapter 11: Process Monitoring

Contents
1. Performance Dashboards
2. Introduction to Process Mining
3. Automated Process Discovery
4. Process Performance Mining
5. Conformance Checking
6. Variants Analysis
7. Process Mining in Practice
8. Recap

SEITE 66
Variants Analysis

Given two logs, find the differences and root causes for
variation or deviance between the two logs

≠
Variants Analysis via Model Differencing

Model
Delta
Analysis

Simple claims and quick Simple claims and slow

S. Suriadi et al.: Understanding Process Behaviours in a Large Insurance Company in Australia: A Case Study. CAiSE 2013
Variants Analysis via Log Delta Analysis

Log Delta Analysis

In L1, “Nursing Primary Assessment”

L1 - Short stay is repeated after “Medical Assign” L2 - Long stay
448 cases and “Triage Request”, while in L2 it is 363 cases
7329 events not 7496 events
…

N.R. van Beest, L. Garcia-Banuelos, M. Dumas, M. La Rosa, Log Delta Analysis: Interpretable Differencing of
Business Process Event Logs. BPM 2015: 386-405
Chapter 11: Process Monitoring

Contents
1. Performance Dashboards
2. Introduction to Process Mining
3. Automated Process Discovery
4. Process Performance Mining
5. Conformance Checking
6. Variants Analysis
7. Process Mining in Practice
8. Recap

SEITE 70
Process Mining: Where is it used?
 Insurance
- Suncorp, Australia
 Government
- Qld Treasury & Trade, Australia
 Health
- AMC Hospital, The Netherlands
- São Sebastião Hospital, Portugal
- Chania Hospital, Greece
- EHR Workflow Inc., USA
 Transport
- ANA Airports, Portugal
- Busan Port, South Korea
- Kuehne + Nagel, Switzerland-Germany
 Electronics
- Phillips, The Netherlands
 Banking, construction… etc.
Case Study: Suncorp Group

• General & life insurance, banking,

superannuation and investments
management
• 9M customers
• 16K employees
• $85 billion in assets
Suncorp Insurance

End to end insurance process

Produc Servic 500
t Dev
Sales
e
Claims tasks
Source: Guidewire reference models

Each process is varied by product & brand…

Home       30
Motor
Commercial


 



  



variations
Liability     
CTP / WC     

Total process variants: 3,000+

Processing Problem
Expected
Ba Performance
d Line

OK

OK Good
Deviance & Variance Mining
Discover and analyse actual organisational processes from data

Simple Claim and Quick Simple Claim and Slow

MODEL

Main result
Key patterns that explain lower performance identified
 Process Mining Methodology

1. Frame & Plan the

Problem
2. Collect the Data
3. Analyze: Look for
Patterns
4. Interpret & Create
Insights
5. Create Business
Impact
Refined by: Wil van der Aalst, 2012
1. Plan & Frame the Problem
 Frame a top-level question or phenomenon:
- How and why does customer experiences with our order-to-cash
processes diverge (geographically, product-wise, temporally)?
- Why does the process perform poorly (bottlenecks, slow
handovers)?
- Why do we have frequent defects or performance deviance?
 Refine problem into:
- Sub-questions
- Identify success criteria and metrics
 Identify needed resources, get buy-in, plan remaining phases
 1. Plan & Frame the Problem – Suncorp

 Often “simple” claims take an unexpectedly long time to complete:

- What distinguishes the processing of simple claims completed on-
time, and simple claims not completed on time?
- What early predictors can be used to determine that a given “simple”
claim will not be completed on time?
 Define what a “simple” claim is
 Create awareness of the extent of the problem

Resources:
 2 part-time Business Analysts, 1 DB Administrator, 1 Executive Manager (sponsor)
 1 full-time data scientist

Timeframe: 4 months
2. Collect the data

 Find relevant data sources

- Information systems, SAP, Oracle, BPM Systems…
- Identify process-related entities and their identifiers and
map entities to relevant processes in the process
architecture
 Extract traces
- Collect records associated with process entities
- Group records by process identifier to produce “traces”
- Export traces into standard format (XES or MXML)
 Clean
- Filter irrelevant events
- Combine equivalent events
- Filter out traces of infrequent variants if not relevant
3. Analyze – look for patterns

 Discover the real process from the logs

 Calculate process metrics
- Cycle times, waiting times, error rates…
 Explore frequent paths
 Discover types of cases (good vs bad)
 Identify process deviances and early predictors
 …
81
More detailed methodology

Aguirre, Parra, Sepúlveda: Methodological proposal for process

mining
Recap

SLIDE 82