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

• Published in: Theoretical Aspects of Computing - ICTAC 2021 Vol. 12819; pp. 3 - 17
• Main Author: van der Aalst, Wil M. P.
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Springer International Publishing AG 2021; Springer International Publishing
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Concurrency; Digital twins; Event data; Process mining
• ISBN: 3030853144; 9783030853143
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-85315-0_1

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.