Summary of Coursera Process Mining.

Week 1 Reading 2: Aalst (2011) Process Mining Chapter 2: Process

modeling and analysis
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The art of modeling

Today most process models are made by hand
Uses of models
To reason about processes (Redesign)
To make decisions inside processes (planning and control)
Operations management and operation research heavily relies on modeling
Use models typically taylored toward a particular analysis technique and only used for
answering a specific question
Process models in BPN may be used to discuss responsibilities, analyze compliance predict
performance and configure a WFM system
BPM and Operation Research have in common that making a good model is an art rather than a
science and it is prone to errors
The model describes an idealized reality
Inability to capture human behavior
The model is at the wrong abstraction level (may be too abstract or too detailed)
With computers and informatics, business processes have become more complex
Therefore, process modeling becomes more important
Managing complexity by documenting procedures
Information systems need to be configured
Technical innovations
Adam Smith (1723-1790) Advantages of the division of labor
Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) scientific management
Henry Ford (1863-1947) Production line for mass production
Inadequate models can lead to wrong conclusions
Therefore, the author advocates for the use of event data
Process mining is great because it provider various views of the same reality at various
abstraction levels

Process Models
The goal of a process model is to decide which activities need to be executed in what order
Sequentially
Ordered
Concurrently
Repeatedly
Notations of Process Models (a lot of logical and mathematical definitions that I did not copy into
this summary)
Transition Systems
The most basic notation
Consists of States and transitions
A transition system (TS) is a triplet ts= (S, A, T) where S is a set of states, A (a subset of the
activity labels set) is the set of activities and T (a subset of the Cartesian product S X A X S) in
the set of transitions. S- Start is the set of initial states and S-end is the set of end states or
"accept" states

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Summary of Coursera Process Mining. Week 1 Reading 2: Aalst (2011) Process Mining Chapter 2: Process
modeling and analysis
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Petri Nets
The oldest and best -investigated
A bipartite graph consisting of Places and Transitions
Definition: Petri Net.PN = (P, T, F)
- P = Finite set of places
- T is an infinite set of transitions Such that the intersection I (P,T)= Empty
- F = Flow relation: A set of directed arcs
- Diagram 1: Example of a Petri net

Definition: Firing Rule

- Let (N, M) Be a marked Petri Net
- Transition T is ENABLED if and only if each of its inputs places contains a token. When a token is
consumed in a starting place, it produces another token in the final place. Only those places with a
token (or mark) Can ionsu me the token and fire or give it an impulse to the next place
Different types of marked Petri Nets
- Definition: Labeled Petri Net: when you put labels in each place of the net. The label is the
observable action
- A marked Petri Net is K-bounded when no place holds more than K tokens
- Safe: when it is 1-bounded
- Deadlock free: when it is possible to escape all the places
- A transition is live if it is possible to enable from all the reachable points
Workflow nets: Are Petri Nets with one dedicated start point and one dedicated end point
They are relevant to Business Process modeling because BPM describes the life cycle of cases
of a given kind
WFN are a natural representation for process mining
Prerequisites to be a SOUND WFN
- It is safe: places have only one token at a time
- Proper completion: Each instance has a start and at end (no infinite loops)
- Option to complete: No deadlocks
- No dead transitions: There is always a firing sequence for any transition.

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Summary of Coursera Process Mining. Week 1 Reading 2: Aalst (2011) Process Mining Chapter 2: Process
modeling and analysis
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YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language)

Both a Workflow language and an open - source workflow system
Diagram 2: YAWL notation

Business process modeling notation (BPMN)

One of the most weekly used languages to model Business Processes
Diagram 3: BPMN Notation

Event - Driven Process Chains

Provide a classical notation to model Business processes
ARIS and SAP
A limited subset of BPMN and YAWL

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Summary of Coursera Process Mining. Week 1 Reading 2: Aalst (2011) Process Mining Chapter 2: Process
modeling and analysis
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Causal nets
A representation tailored toward Process Mining
A graph where nodes represent activities and arcs represent causal dependencies
Diagram 4 a causal net

Model - Based Process Analysis

Verification: Concerned with the correctness of a system or process
A verification task is to check the soundness of the model
Another task is comparing two models
Performance Analysis: Focus on times (flow, waiting) utilization and service levels
Performance indicators based on the times
Cost dimension
Quality dimension: Based on the product or service delivered
Limitations of Model-Based Analysis
Lack of alignment between hand-made models and reality
The techniques discussed in this book allow to view realities from different angles and level of
abstractions

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