Process mining

There are three main classes of process mining techniques: process discovery, conformance checking, and process enhancement. In the past, terms like workflow mining and automated business process discovery (ABPD) were used. Process mining techniques are often used when no formal description of the process can be obtained by other approaches, or when the quality of existing documentation is questionable. For example, application of process mining methodology to the audit trails of a workflow management system, the transaction logs of an enterprise resource planning system, or the electronic patient records in a hospital can result in models describing processes of organizations. Event log analysis can also be used to compare event logs with prior model(s) to understand whether the observations conform to a prescriptive or descriptive model. It is required that the event logs data be linked to a case ID, activities, and timestamps. Contemporary management trends such as BAM (business activity monitoring), BOM (business operations management), and BPI (business process intelligence) illustrate the interest in supporting diagnosis functionality in the context of business process management technology (e.g., workflow management systems and other process-aware information systems). Process mining is different from mainstream machine learning, data mining, and artificial intelligence techniques.