Skip to main content

A Hierarchical Markov Model to Understand the Behaviour of Agents in Business Processes

  • Conference paper
Business Process Management Workshops (BPM 2012)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 132))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Process mining techniques are able to discover process models from event logs but there is a gap between the low-level nature of events and the high-level abstraction of business activities. In this work we present a hierarchical Markov model together with mining techniques to discover the relationship between low-level events and a high-level description of the business process. This can be used to understand how agents perform activities at run-time. In a case study experiment using an agent-based simulation platform (AOR), we show how the proposed approach is able to discover the behaviour of agents in each activity of a business process for which a high-level model is known.

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

Access this chapter

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

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

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

    Google Scholar 

  2. Greco, G., Guzzo, A., Pontieri, L.: Mining Hierarchies of Models: From Abstract Views to Concrete Specifications. In: van der Aalst, W.M.P., Benatallah, B., Casati, F., Curbera, F. (eds.) BPM 2005. LNCS, vol. 3649, pp. 32–47. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. 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 

  4. Günther, C.W., Rozinat, A., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Activity Mining by Global Trace Segmentation. In: Rinderle-Ma, S., Sadiq, S., Leymann, F. (eds.) BPM 2009. LNBIP, vol. 43, pp. 128–139. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Bose, R.P.J.C., Verbeek, E.H.M.W., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Discovering Hierarchical Process Models Using ProM. In: Nurcan, S. (ed.) CAiSE Forum 2011. LNBIP, vol. 107, pp. 33–48. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Wooldridge, M., Jennings, N.R.: Intelligent agents: Theory and practice. Knowledge Engineering Review 10(2), 115–152 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Veiga, G.M., Ferreira, D.R.: Understanding Spaghetti Models with Sequence Clustering for ProM. In: Rinderle-Ma, S., Sadiq, S., Leymann, F. (eds.) BPM 2009 Workshops. LNBIP, vol. 43, pp. 92–103. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Dempster, A.P., Laird, N.M., Rubin, D.B.: Maximum likelihood from incomplete data via the EM algorithm. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 39(1), 1–38 (1977)

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. McLachlan, G.J., Krishnan, T.: The EM Algorithm and Extensions. Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics. Wiley-Interscience (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Bonabeau, E.: Agent-based modeling: Methods and techniques for simulating human systems. PNAS 99(suppl. 3), 7280–7287 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Davidsson, P., Holmgren, J., Kyhlbäck, H., Mengistu, D., Persson, M.: Applications of Agent Based Simulation. In: Antunes, L., Takadama, K. (eds.) MABS 2006. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 4442, pp. 15–27. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. Railsback, S.F., Lytinen, S.L., Jackson, S.K.: Agent-based simulation platforms: Review and development recommendations. Simulation 82(9), 609–623 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Wagner, G.: AOR Modelling and Simulation: Towards a General Architecture for Agent-Based Discrete Event Simulation. In: Giorgini, P., Henderson-Sellers, B., Winikoff, M. (eds.) AOIS 2003. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3030, pp. 174–188. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. Wagner, G., Nicolae, O., Werner, J.: Extending discrete event simulation by adding an activity concept for business process modeling and simulation. In: Proceedings of the 2009 Winter Simulation Conference, pp. 2951–2962 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Nicolae, O., Wagner, G., Werner, J.: Towards an Executable Semantics for Activities Using Discrete Event Simulation. In: Rinderle-Ma, S., Sadiq, S., Leymann, F. (eds.) BPM 2009 Workshops. LNBIP, vol. 43, pp. 369–380. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Ferreira, D.R., Szimanski, F., Ralha, C.G. (2013). A Hierarchical Markov Model to Understand the Behaviour of Agents in Business Processes. In: La Rosa, M., Soffer, P. (eds) Business Process Management Workshops. BPM 2012. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 132. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36285-9_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36285-9_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-36284-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-36285-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics