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Concurrency and Objects Matter! Disentangling the Fabric of Real Operational Processes to Create Digital Twins

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Theoretical Aspects of Computing – ICTAC 2021 (ICTAC 2021)

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Abstract

Process mining dramatically changed the way we look at process models and operational processes. Even seemingly simple processes like Purchase-to-Pay (P2P) and Order-to-Cash (O2C) are often amazingly complex, and traditional hand-made process models fail to capture the true fabric of such processes. Many processes are inherently concurrent and involve interaction between different objects (customers, suppliers, orders, items, shipments, payments, machines, workers, etc.). Process mining uses event data to construct process models that can be used to diagnose performance and compliance problems. If such models reflect reality well, they can be used for forward-looking forms of process mining, including predictive analytics, evidence-based automation, and what-if simulation. The ultimate goal is to create a “digital twin of an organization” that can be used to explore different improvement actions. This paper provides a high-level overview of the different process mining tasks followed by a more detailed discussion on concurrency and object-centricity in process mining.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    \(\mathcal{P}(\mathbb {U}_{ oi })\) is the powerset of the universe of object identifiers, i.e., object types are mapped onto sets of object identifiers. \( omap \in \mathbb {U}_{ ot } \not \rightarrow \mathcal{P}(\mathbb {U}_{ oi })\) is a partial function. If \( ot \not \in dom ( omap )\), then we assume that \( omap ( ot ) = \emptyset \).

  2. 2.

    \(\mathbb {U}_{ att } \not \rightarrow \mathbb {U}_{ val }\) is the set of all partial functions mapping a subset of attribute names onto the corresponding values.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Stiftung for supporting his research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Process and Data Science (Informatik 9), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Wil M. P. van der Aalst

  2. Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik (FIT), Sankt Augustin, Germany

    Wil M. P. van der Aalst

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  1. Wil M. P. van der Aalst
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Correspondence to Wil M. P. van der Aalst .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

    Antonio Cerone

  2. Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Peter Csaba Ölveczky

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van der Aalst, W.M.P. (2021). Concurrency and Objects Matter! Disentangling the Fabric of Real Operational Processes to Create Digital Twins. In: Cerone, A., Ölveczky, P.C. (eds) Theoretical Aspects of Computing – ICTAC 2021. ICTAC 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12819. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85315-0_1

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