Skip to main content

Discovering Block-Structured Process Models from Incomplete Event Logs

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8489))

Abstract

One of the main challenges in process mining is to discover a process model describing observed behaviour in the best possible manner. Since event logs only contain example behaviour and one cannot assume to have seen all possible process executions, process discovery techniques need to be able to handle incompleteness. In this paper, we study the effects of such incomplete logs on process discovery. We analyse the impact of incompleteness of logs on behavioural relations, which are abstractions often used by process discovery techniques. We introduce probabilistic behavioural relations that are less sensitive to incompleteness, and exploit these relations to provide a more robust process discovery algorithm. We prove this algorithm to be able to rediscover a model of the original system. Furthermore, we show in experiments that our approach even rediscovers models from incomplete event logs that are much smaller than required by other process discovery algorithms.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. van der Aalst, W.: Process Mining: Discovery, Conformance and Enhancement of Business Processes. Springer (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  2. van der Aalst, W., Buijs, J., van Dongen, B.: Towards improving the representational bias of process mining. In: Aberer, K., Damiani, E., Dillon, T. (eds.) SIMPDA 2011. LNBIP, vol. 116, pp. 39–54. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. van der Aalst, W., Weijters, A., Maruster, L.: Workflow mining: Discovering process models from event logs. IEEE Trans. Knowl. Data Eng. 16(9), 1128–1142 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Badouel, E., Darondeau, P.: Theory of Regions. In: Reisig, W., Rozenberg, G. (eds.) APN 1998. LNCS, vol. 1491, pp. 529–586. Springer, Heidelberg (1998)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Badouel, E.: On the α-reconstructibility of workflow nets. In: Haddad, S., Pomello, L. (eds.) PETRI NETS 2012. LNCS, vol. 7347, pp. 128–147. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Bergenthum, R., Desel, J., Mauser, S., Lorenz, R.: Synthesis of Petri nets from term based representations of infinite partial languages. Fundam. Inform. 95(1), 187–217 (2009)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  7. Bloom, S.L., Ésik, Z.: Free shuffle algebras in language varieties. Theor. Comput. Sci. 163(1&2), 55–98 (1996)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  8. Buijs, J., van Dongen, B., van der Aalst, W.: A genetic algorithm for discovering process trees. In: IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, pp. 1–8. IEEE (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Carmona, J.: Projection approaches to process mining using region-based techniques. Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery 24(1), 218–246 (2012)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  10. Cortadella, J., Kishinevsky, M., Lavagno, L., Yakovlev, A.: Deriving Petri nets for finite transition systems. IEEE Trans. Computers 47(8), 859–882 (1998)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. Darondeau, P.: Region based synthesis of P/T-nets and its potential applications. In: Nielsen, M., Simpson, D. (eds.) ICATPN 2000. LNCS, vol. 1825, pp. 16–23. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Darondeau, P.: Unbounded Petri net synthesis. In: Desel, J., Reisig, W., Rozenberg, G. (eds.) Lectures on Concurrency and Petri Nets. LNCS, vol. 3098, pp. 413–438. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. De Weerdt, J., De Backer, M., Vanthienen, J., Baesens, B.: A multi-dimensional quality assessment of state-of-the-art process discovery algorithms using real-life event logs. Information Systems 37, 654–676 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. van Dongen, B.F., de Medeiros, A.K.A., Verbeek, H.M.W., Weijters, A.J.M.M.T., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: The proM framework: A new era in process mining tool support. In: Ciardo, G., Darondeau, P. (eds.) ICATPN 2005. LNCS, vol. 3536, pp. 444–454. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  15. Ehrenfeucht, A., Rozenberg, G.: Partial (set) 2-structures. Acta Informatica 27(4), 343–368 (1990)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  16. Günther, C.W., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Fuzzy mining – adaptive process simplification based on multi-perspective metrics. In: Alonso, G., Dadam, P., Rosemann, M. (eds.) BPM 2007. LNCS, vol. 4714, pp. 328–343. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Leemans, S.J.J., Fahland, D., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Discovering block-structured process models from event logs - A constructive approach. In: Colom, J.-M., Desel, J. (eds.) PETRI NETS 2013. LNCS, vol. 7927, pp. 311–329. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  18. Leemans, S., Fahland, D., van der Aalst, W.: Discovering block-structured process models from event logs containing infrequent behaviour. In: Business Process Management Workshops. Springer (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Leemans, S., Fahland, D., van der Aalst, W.: Discovering block-structured process models from incomplete event logs. Tech. Rep. BPM-14-05, Eindhoven University of Technology (March 2014)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Linz, P.: An introduction to formal languages and automata. Jones & Bartlett Learning (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Lorenz, R., Mauser, S., Juhás, G.: How to synthesize nets from languages: a survey. In: Winter Simulation Conference, WSC, pp. 637–647 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Polyvyanyy, A., Vanhatalo, J., Völzer, H.: Simplified computation and generalization of the refined process structure tree. In: Bravetti, M. (ed.) WS-FM 2010. LNCS, vol. 6551, pp. 25–41. Springer, Heidelberg (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Reisig, W., Schnupp, P., Muchnick, S.: Primer in Petri Net Design. Springer (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Rozinat, A., de Medeiros, A.K.A., Günther, C.W., Weijters, A.J.M.M., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: The need for a process mining evaluation framework in research and practice. In: ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Benatallah, B., Paik, H.-Y. (eds.) BPM 2007 Workshops. LNCS, vol. 4928, pp. 84–89. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  25. Rozinat, A., Veloso, M., van der Aalst, W.: Evaluating the quality of discovered process models. In: 2nd Int. Workshop on the Induction of Process Models, pp. 45–52 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Schimm, G.: Generic linear business process modeling. In: Mayr, H.C., Liddle, S.W., Thalheim, B. (eds.) ER Workshops 2000. LNCS, vol. 1921, pp. 31–39. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Schimm, G.: Process miner - A tool for mining process schemes from event-based data. In: Flesca, S., Greco, S., Leone, N., Ianni, G. (eds.) JELIA 2002. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2424, pp. 525–528. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Schimm, G.: Mining most specific workflow models from event-based data. In: van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M., Weske, M. (eds.) BPM 2003. LNCS, vol. 2678, pp. 25–40. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Smirnov, S., Weidlich, M., Mendling, J.: Business process model abstraction based on synthesis from well-structured behavioral profiles. Int. J. Cooperative Inf. Syst. 21(1), 55–83 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Solé, M., Carmona, J.: Process mining from a basis of state regions. In: Lilius, J., Penczek, W. (eds.) PETRI NETS 2010. LNCS, vol. 6128, pp. 226–245. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  31. Weidlich, M., van der Werf, J.M.: On profiles and footprints – relational semantics for petri nets. In: Haddad, S., Pomello, L. (eds.) PETRI NETS 2012. LNCS, vol. 7347, pp. 148–167. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  32. Weidlich, M., Polyvyanyy, A., Mendling, J., Weske, M.: Causal behavioural profiles - efficient computation, applications, and evaluation. Fundam. Inform. 113(3-4), 399–435 (2011)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  33. Weijters, A., van der Aalst, W., de Medeiros, A.: Process mining with the heuristics miner-algorithm. BETA Working Paper series 166, Eindhoven University of Technology (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Weijters, A., Ribeiro, J.: Flexible Heuristics Miner. In: CIDM, pp. 310–317. IEEE (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Wen, L., van der Aalst, W., Wang, J., Sun, J.: Mining process models with non-free-choice constructs. Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery 15(2), 145–180 (2007)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  36. Wen, L., Wang, J., Sun, J.: Mining invisible tasks from event logs. In: Dong, G., Lin, X., Wang, W., Yang, Y., Yu, J.X. (eds.) APWeb/WAIM 2007. LNCS, vol. 4505, pp. 358–365. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  37. van der Werf, J., van Dongen, B., Hurkens, C., Serebrenik, A.: Process discovery using integer linear programming. Fundam. Inform. 94(3-4), 387–412 (2009)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  38. Yzquierdo-Herrera, R., Silverio-Castro, R., Lazo-Cortés, M.: Sub-process discovery: Opportunities for process diagnostics. In: Poels, G. (ed.) CONFENIS 2012. LNBIP, vol. 139, pp. 48–57. Springer, Heidelberg (2013)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Leemans, S.J.J., Fahland, D., van der Aalst, W.M.P. (2014). Discovering Block-Structured Process Models from Incomplete Event Logs. In: Ciardo, G., Kindler, E. (eds) Application and Theory of Petri Nets and Concurrency. PETRI NETS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8489. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07734-5_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07734-5_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07733-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07734-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics