Workflow mining: discovering process models from event logs

Abstract

Contemporary management systems are driven by explicit process models, i.e., a completely specified design is required in order to enact a given process. Creating a design is a complicated time-consuming process and, typically, there are discrepancies between the actual processes and the processes as perceived by the management. Therefore, we have developed techniques for discovering models. The starting point for such techniques is a so-called workflow containing information about the process as it is actually being executed. We present a new algorithm to extract a process model from such a log and represent it in terms of a Petri net. However, we also demonstrate that it is not possible to discover arbitrary processes. We explore a class of processes that can be discovered. We show that the /spl alpha/-algorithm can successfully mine any represented by a so-called SWF-net.