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A Rule-Based Approach for Process Discovery: Dealing with Noise and Imbalance in Process Logs

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Abstract

Effective information systems require the existence of explicit process models. A completely specified process design needs to be developed in order to enact a given business process. This development is time consuming and often subjective and incomplete. We propose a method that constructs the process model from process log data, by determining the relations between process tasks. To predict these relations, we employ machine learning technique to induce rule sets. These rule sets are induced from simulated process log data generated by varying process characteristics such as noise and log size. Tests reveal that the induced rule sets have a high predictive accuracy on new data. The effects of noise and imbalance of execution priorities during the discovery of the relations between process tasks are also discussed. Knowing the causal, exclusive, and parallel relations, a process model expressed in the Petri net formalism can be built. We illustrate our approach with real world data in a case study.

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Notes

  1. For more information see http://www.processmining.org.

  2. T ∗ is the set of all sequences that are composed of zero or more tasks of T. W: T ∗→ \(\mathcal{N}\) is a function from the elements of T ∗ to N (i.e., the number of times an element of T ∗ appears in the process log).

  3. We use a capital letter and || when referring to the number of occurrences of some task.

  4. The name of the organization is not given for confidentiality reasons.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Christine Pelletier (University of Groningen) for her valuable comments and remarks during the review of our paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Groningen, P.O. Box 800, 9700 AV, Groningen, NL, Netherlands

    Laura Măruşter

  2. Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, NL, Netherlands

    A. J. M. M. (TON) Weijters & Wil M. P. Van Der Aalst

  3. Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE, Tilburg, NL, Netherlands

    Antal Van Den Bosch

Authors
  1. Laura Măruşter
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  2. A. J. M. M. (TON) Weijters
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  3. Wil M. P. Van Der Aalst
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  4. Antal Van Den Bosch
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Correspondence to Laura Măruşter.

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Măruşter, L., Weijters, A.J.M.M.(., Van Der Aalst, W.M.P. et al. A Rule-Based Approach for Process Discovery: Dealing with Noise and Imbalance in Process Logs. Data Min Knowl Disc 13, 67–87 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10618-005-0029-z

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