Process mining
and its impact
on BPM
July 2019
Contents
Abstract........................................................................................ 3
Beginning of process mining........................................................... 4
Fundamental for process mining: event logs.................................... 5
Three key capabilities of process mining.......................................... 5
Automated Business Process Discovery (ABPD).......................... 6
Business process conformance checking..................................... 6
Enhancement............................................................................. 6
Perspectives covered by process mining models.............................. 7
Implementation of process mining in service delivery...................... 7
Six top tools recognized in the market for process mining................ 9
Process mining optimizing BPM life cycle........................................ 10
Digital transformation driven by process mining.............................. 13
Conclusion..................................................................................... 14
References..................................................................................... 15
Contacts........................................................................................ 16
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 2
Abstract
Current business environment has no room for inefficiencies, as it can lead the organization to
losing out to their competitors, loss of customer trust and cost overruns. Therefore, organizations
are now focused on the ongoing monitoring and fine–tuning of their business operations to ensure
that they are performing at an optimum level. To enable this, real–time process data capture is
essential.
In this context, process mining is an enabler that uncovers the root causes of process inefficiencies
by reconstructing and visualizing as–is business process flows and their many variations. Process
mining techniques use event data to discover process operations, check the conformance of
predefined process models, and enhance such models with information about bottlenecks, decisions
and resource usage.
This document explains in detail process mining and its capabilities including process discovery,
conformance and process enhancement. It provides a quick overview of some of the process
mining tools available in the market and ties the process mining technology to the business process
management (BPM) process life cycle. One may also find use cases that describe process mining
opportunities in the context of automation and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) deployment.
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 3
Beginning of process mining
The growth of a digital universe that is well-aligned with processes in organizations makes it possible
to record and analyze events. Some probable examples of events can be withdrawal of cash from
an ATM, a doctor adjusting an X–ray machine, a citizen applying for a driver’s license, submission
of a tax declaration, and receipt of an e–ticket number by a traveler. The challenge is to exploit
event data in a meaningful way — for example, to provide insights, identify bottlenecks, anticipate
problems, record policy violations, recommend countermeasures and streamline processes. This is
where process mining fits into the conversation, because it aims to do exactly that.
Process mining is an analytical approach that uses data from IT systems to gain objective insights
and uncover hidden problems.
Many enterprises are looking to simplify their processes and IT landscapes to reduce costs, and
improve customer experience to foster higher retention rates and generate growth. To deliver these
goals, removal of departmental and data silos is required. Digital transformation using traditional
waterfall approaches and manual process design is lengthy. Process mining offers a much faster
approach, which sits well with modern agile development methods, particularly as the impact
analysis provides a strong basis for any business case.
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 4
Fundamental for process mining: event logs
The starting point for process mining is an event log. All process mining techniques assume that it is
possible to sequentially record events such that each event refers to an activity (i.e., a well–defined
step in some process) and is related to a particular case (i.e., a process instance). Event logs may
store additional information about events. In fact, whenever possible, process mining techniques
use extra information such as the resource (i.e., person or device) executing or initiating the event,
timestamp of the event, or data elements recorded with the event (e.g., size of an order).
Digital Visualization
footprints from and analysis of
any IT system actual process
Process
mining
Three key capabilities of process mining
Automated
Business
Business
process
Process Enhancement
conformance
Discovery
checking
(ABPD)
Conduct automated Compare actual Analyze processes, detect
process model processes with areas of optimization
detection and learn designed processes and increase process
about the bottlenecks, to identify the highest automation
inefficiencies and priority issues and help
compliance issues with root–cause analysis
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 5
Automated Business Process Discovery (ABPD)
The first capability of process mining is discovery. A discovery technique takes an event log and
produces a process model without using any prior information. Analysts use the process discovery
capability to gather event data from source software systems and create visualizations of workflow
through the systems. They explore the process patterns to uncover situations that cause errors and
inefficiencies or aggravate risks.
By starting with exploring the most frequent activities and connections — known as “happy path”
— analysts can drill down to explore process variants that are expressed in subsets of the event log
data and analyze how these variants differ from each other. The analysis of these process variants
reflects significant process rework, steps missed or tasks completed out of order, and so on.
Business process conformance checking
The second capability of process mining is conformance. Here, an existing process model is
compared with an event log of the same process. Conformance checking can be used to check if
real–time data, as recorded in the log, conforms to the model and vice versa.
Algorithms analyze the level of match between the reference process model and the case paths
it reconstructs from log files, and help with root–cause analysis by highlighting any case features
that are correlated. Further, some process mining tools also offer features to explore and analyze
process performance based on the identities of the individuals and teams carrying out the tasks (for
example, to understand where there might be training gaps).
Enhancement
The third capability of process mining is enhancement. Here, the idea is to extend or improve an
existing process model using information about the actual process recorded in some event log. While
conformance check measures the alignment between model and reality, this third process mining
capability aims at changing or extending the existing model. An example is extension of a process
model with performance information, such as showing bottlenecks.
Techniques for process discovery take an event log and produce a model. The discovered model
is typically a process model (e.g., BPMN,1 EPC2 or UML3); however, the model may also describe
other perspectives (e.g., a social network). Conformance checking techniques need an event log
and a model as inputs. The output consists of diagnostic information showing differences and
commonalities between the model and the event log. Techniques for model enhancement (repair
or extension) also need an event log and a model as inputs. The output is an improved or extended
model.
1
BPMN: Business Process Model and Notation
2
EPC: Event–driven Process Chain
3
UML: Unified Modeling Language
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 6
Perspectives covered by process mining models
Four key perspectives covered by process mining during process discovery include:
1. T
he control flow perspective focuses on the control flow, i.e., the ordering of activities. The goal
of this perspective is to find a comprehensive depiction of all possible paths. The result is typically
expressed in terms of a process modeling notation (e.g., BPMN, EPC or UML diagrams).
2. The organizational perspective focuses on information about resources in the activity, i.e.,
which actors (e.g., people, systems, roles or departments) are involved and how they are related.
The goal is to either structure the organization by organizing people in terms of roles and
organizational units or to show the social network.
3. The case perspective focuses on properties of cases. Apparently, a case can be defined by its
path in the process or by the actors working on it. However, cases can also be characterized by
the values of the corresponding data elements. For example, if a case represents a replenishment
order, it may be interesting to know the supplier or the number of products ordered.
4. The time perspective is concerned with the timing and frequency of events. When events bear
timestamps, it is possible to discover bottlenecks, measure service levels, monitor the utilization
of resources, and predict the remaining processing time of running cases.
Implementation of process mining in service
delivery
A typical process mining project consists of four phases as shown below:
Process
mining
methodology
Sustain:
Diagnose: Deliver: process
Prepare: data
planning, process improvement
connection and
scoping and mining and and
extraction
review analysis monitoring
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 7
Diagnose: planning, scoping and review
During the diagnose phase, the goals and initial analysis questions are defined. The processes in
scope, the period of the analysis, the business questions to be answered, the team composition
and the analysis timeline are defined at this stage.
Prepare: data connection and extraction
During the prepare phase, data requirements are defined, the scope of the data extraction is
set, and the data is retrieved. The systems and tables that need to be retrieved, the attributes
(data fields), granularity of the data, and the logic with which the data should be collected and
connected must be defined at this stage.
In many situations, the retrieved data cannot be directly used for process mining and must be
prepared and transformed. Depending on different analysis questions, data processing may be
executed several times to enable a specific analysis.
Deliver: process mining and analysis
During the analysis stage of the deliver phase, different process mining techniques are applied
to answer the analysis questions. These techniques include process discovery, conformance
checking, process enhancement and process analytics. The aim is to relate the analysis
findings to improvement ideas that can help achieve the project goals. This includes the
correct interpretation of the results. The interpretation needs to be validated and verified by
domain experts.
Sustain: process improvement and monitoring
The insights obtained from the previous stages are used to modify the actual process execution.
Herein, process re–engineering techniques and Six Sigma can be leveraged. Finally, process
mining can be used to continuously monitor the processes and support continuous improvement.
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 8
Six top tools recognized in the market for
process mining
There are several process mining tools in the market, of which some have more commercial appeal
while some are used more for academic and research purposes. In any case, to allow process mining
objectives to be achieved, these tools are required to have minimum functionalities as given below:
1. Track event logs
2. Monitor process performance
Tools also offer additional value–adding features such as:
1. B
eing faster, more accurate and able to integrate other technologies (such as machine learning,
to provide proactive insights for data–driven decision–making and process improvement)
2. Being collaborative and more secure
3. Offering flexible process reporting
4. Performing key performance indicator (KPI) calculation
Based on EY findings, the six most used process mining tools are: Celonis, ARIS Process Mining,
Minit, QPR, Signavio Process Intelligence and ProcessGold. All of them are also recognized by
Gartner as market–leading tools. All these tools present the following capabilities:
1. Process discovery
2. Conformance checking
3. Process visualization and performance reporting
4. Insights for improvement (enhancement)
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 9
Process mining optimizing BPM life cycle
An organization concerned about meeting clients’ expectations and performing efficiently should
have clarity on the operational processes’ life cycle. A process is executed for a specific purpose
with definite performance expectations; when it is not supportive to the organization’s strategy, it
undergoes a series of adjustments.
An ongoing operational process is monitored and measured, and its performance is evaluated.
Based on the evaluation, different aspects of the process may be changed. This leads to designing
of an optimized newer version, which is then implemented, restarting the cycle again: monitoring
the process in execution, measuring, evaluating it against the organization’s strategy, designing the
optimized version and implementing it again. This is the basis of a process life cycle.
Process mining offers numerous advantages during various phases of a traditional process life cycle.
BPM life Key Process mining
Benefits
cycle phase challenges capability
Less time is spent on human
Uncovering the real
Process Process discovery: taking judgments, subjectivity and
process as it is and
modeling the event log and producing arguments from personal
representing it in a
a model experiences, and the process
model
is more accurately described.
Powered analysis for
Timing, frequency and
process enhancement:
Process Providing insights into deviation information are
enhancing or extending
redesigning what process changes made handy for assertive
existing process models by
are needed and where process improvement
using additional data from
recommendations.
the recorded logs
Extracting process There is no need of
Process monitoring:
information, spending time collecting and
Process automatically consolidating
calculating the KPIs calculating KPIs. Real–time
execution and data as soon as it is
and putting the data is automatically feeding
monitoring generated during process
information in the KPIs, so that off-track
execution (real time) and
ideal formats for behaviors can be quickly
updating dashboards
leadership to evaluate identified and corrected.
Achieving full Process refinement:
Important insights are
transparency and refining real–time
Process provided by the tool
identifying potential information for advanced
strategy to identify potential
issues as soon as they machine learning and
improvements and changes
happen or even artificial intelligence
needed.
before it enablement
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 10
Process mining during the phase of process
modeling (process discovery)
There are several techniques traditionally used for modeling processes. The key challenge for
business process analysts lies in uncovering the real process as it is.
With process mining, a process has its inputs traced step by step until the end. The process model is
created based on this information. Deviations from the usual path will appear as soon as you repeat
the tracking for new executions of the same process. At the end of this exercise, the process model
will be clear and complete, and no validations or workshops are needed because this is a fact–based
model.
Process mining during the phase of process
redesign (powered analysis and redesign)
The data captured during process discovery and the historical data provide rich information for the
redesign phase. The frequency of different paths taken in a process, the throughput time in these
different paths, the errors, bottlenecks and other relevant information are made available from the
discovery exercise in the previous phase. Then, it is time for the business process analysts to come
up with insights — what changes are needed and where. New version of the process can be designed
and tested for multiple scenarios, and the most beneficial version is picked up for implementation.
Process mining during implementation
Implementation of anything new in an organization involves people and, therefore, requires strong
leadership and clear communications, along with trainings and a detailed change approach. This
phase is not impacted by process mining, but it is key that during implementation, the process
performance metrics are understood and agreed, and the mechanism for tracking is designed, to
allow process mining in the other phases.
Process mining during the phase of execution
and monitoring (process monitoring)
Monitoring is the core capability for process mining. It is expected that the implemented process
works for the extraction of the best results possible. In a traditional BPM life cycle, there is a special
activity for business process analysts to extract process information, calculate KPIs and put this
information in the ideal formats for leadership to evaluate.
However, with process mining intelligence, the system pulls out the consolidated data as soon as it is
generated during process execution. Two key benefits are easily observed:
1. No need of spending time collecting and calculating KPIs
2. Real–time data is feeding KPIs, so off-track behaviors can be quickly identified and corrected
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 11
Process mining for strategy
(process refinement)
Changes are inevitable in the dynamic business world. Full transparency is important for an
organization to promptly identify the need for change and start acting. With the implementation
of process mining intelligence, out–of–the–curve behaviors are identified as soon as they occur
and it offers to business analysts an important insight for accelerating strategic decision–making.
Inefficiencies, vulnerability, deviations and bottlenecks are exposed by process mining. To empower
process refinement, this technology also allows implementation of other technologies such as
machine learning and artificial intelligence — they can act on the top of process execution to identify
potential issues before they happen and act proactively, resulting in productivity, seamless process
execution and assertiveness.
Process mining provides a link between business
intelligence and process modeling and analysis.
BPM tools enable organizations to document the modeled processes and analyze them to
identify improvement opportunities. Using these tools, the organizations can also simulate the
processes to visualize how a process would run in various scenarios. Eventually, BPM tools also
aid in execution, implementation and monitoring of the modeled processes. They leverage
existing integration architectures, data sources, applications and legacy systems connected to
end-to-end business processes. However, these models are often completely disconnected from
the actual event data.
Process mining offers a new approach to improving and optimizing business processes, and the
capability expands beyond traditional BPM initiatives. Instead of focusing strictly on process
management, process mining offers a transparent, holistic view of all activities taking place
within an organization, and allows for deeper analysis of those activities. Process mining
techniques offer a dynamic system that can reflect the changes in the process in real time.
The purpose here is not to construct a static model.
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 12
Digital transformation driven by process mining
Process mining can be applied in different areas of an organization. The use cases for process
mining are not limited to analyzing or creating a process model. Given the right data, process mining
can provide insights into the performance and relations of resources in the process. The way people
work together to complete a complex task can be visualized. Process mining can help to provide
performance statistics that aren’t limited to a single task.
The usage differs with the context of the stakeholder and type of project. Even within a project,
process mining can be used in different phases. This section introduces a list of process mining
use cases.
Automation using process mining
Before getting started with an automation initiative, it is crucial to assess whether current processes
are efficient and scalable. It is critical to understand the maturity of a process and decide which
processes are standardized enough to benefit from robotic process automation (RPA) and which
ones need harmonization and standardization prior to starting an RPA initiative.
Process mining helps to reconstruct, visualize and analyze the processes and understand the degree
of standardization by looking at the deviations. Its process analytics capabilities enable business
users to identify and prioritize RPA initiatives and their economic impact with just a few clicks. In
addition, it is possible to combine operational system data to provide full visibility into what actions a
user takes at each step in a business process. As a result, the most repeatable patterns in a manual
activity can easily be found and prioritized by their impact.
However, implementing bots has a downside too. They are not able to adapt and deviate from their
initial configuration, even if that would result in a more favorable overall outcome. Advanced process
mining capabilities capture real–time information from all systems in an organization and leverage
this information to define the right activity at the right time. This ensures that the robots are
working in the most efficient manner to lead a beneficial process outcome.
ERP consolidation
In IT landscape transformations, process mining is critical. For organizations with multiple ERP
systems, consolidation is not as simple as just combining all the data from the existing systems. Over
time, these different ERP systems have likely diverged into different variants of the process. Many
probably have had patches added over the years, which alter the behavior of the users. There may
be varying levels of automation across each deployment. In this case, the major task is to discover
how the processes vary from system to system or how the user behavior and interactions differ
across business units.
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 13
Process mining helps to compare and benchmark each ERP system vs. the others to identify the
best practices and, more importantly, differences that must be resolved prior to consolidation. It
also helps to identify process owners and users who will need to be trained on process updates.
Post consolidation, use of process mining on an ongoing basis is absolutely critical for process
improvement and optimization and to detect potential problems before they create a business
impact.
Operational efficiency
Achieving operational excellence requires new approaches and methods to optimize the current
processes.
Automated process discovery helps to visualize the reality of business processes by examining the
electronic footprints (event logs) left in various IT systems. From this unstructured data, process
mining software will automatically create a process model to enable in–depth analysis.
The benefit here is fast and cost–efficient process discovery that eliminates the need for piecing
together of the process from interviews. Automated business process discovery also reduces human
errors. Process maps are created from the data logged during normal execution of the process and
contain all the nuances of the process, statistical information and variants. Analysis of such process
maps will help to uncover exceptions, unusual transactions, bottlenecks, deviations and potential
risks in processes.
Process mining can provide enterprise–wide process transparency and identify new opportunities to
continuously improve the enterprise’s business operations.
Conclusion
Process mining is an innovative analytical approach using data from IT systems to compile objective
insights and uncover hidden problems appearing in business process execution. Process mining
bridges the white space between various systems, departments and functions, as it allows to
combine information from multiple data sources.
However, process mining is not limited to process discovery and refinement. Event logs are in the
center of process mining, and the discovery of process models from event logs fuels the imagination
of business process analysts and process owners. Therefore, control flow discovery is often seen as
the most exciting part of process mining. With its advanced analytical and intelligent capabilities,
process mining plays an essential and fundamental part in digital transformation and achieving
operational excellence.
Process mining technology for big data analytics has already started appearing in large companies
as a business–critical application in the race for the fastest, most efficient and most transparent
processes.
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 14
References
• ”► Business process management: a comprehensive survey,” ResearchGate, January 2012.
• “► Guide to Operational Excellence v—Minit Process Mining,” Minit, accessed 3 April 2019.
• “► How Process Mining Fits into the BPM Lifecycle,” Minit, accessed 12 April 2019.
• “► Making RPA and Automation Successful with Intelligent Process Mining Technology,” Celonis,
accessed 15 March 2019.
• “► Process mining and robotic process automation: A perfect match,” CEUR Workshop Proceedings,
9–14 September 2018.
• “► The Intelligent Business Cloud,” Celonis, accessed 12 March 2019.
• “► What is Process Mining — Minit Process Mining,” Minit, accessed 7 March 2019.
• “► What is Process Mining and how does it suit Business Process Management?” Lana Labs,
accessed 16 April 2019.
• W
► il van der Aalst, Using Process Mining to Bridge the Gap between BI and BPM (IEEE, 2011).
• W
► il van der Aalst, “How to get started with process mining?”, EiPSI General information.
Process mining and its impact on BPM July 2019 I 15
Contacts
This document is created and maintained by the Digital Products & Solutions — Business Process
Management (BPM) team within EY Global Markets.
Ken P. Hammond Ajar Mathur
Partner Assistant Director
EYEA LLC EY LLP
Email: ken.hammond@eyg.ey.com Email: ajar.mathur@gds.ey.com
Beatriz Moura Palak Mehra
Assistant Director Senior Analyst
EY Assessoria Empresarial EY LLP
Email: beatriz.moura@br.ey.com Email: palak.mehra@gds.ey.com
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