Conformance Checking: Relating Processes and Models

by Josep Carmona, Boudewijn van Dongen, Andreas Solti, Matthias Weidlich

Overview

This book introduces readers to the field of conformance checking as a whole and outlines the fundamental relation between modelled and recorded behaviour. Conformance checking interrelates the modelled and recorded behaviour of a given process and provides techniques and methods for comparing and analysing observed instances of a process in the presence of a model, independent of the model’s origin. Its goal is to provide an overview of the essential techniques and methods in this field at an intuitive level, together with precise formalisations of its underlying principles.

The book is divided into three parts, that are meant to cover different perspectives of the field of conformance checking. Part I presents a comprehensive yet accessible overview of the essential concepts used to interrelate modelled and recorded behaviour. It also serves as a reference for assessing how conformance checking efforts could be applied in specific domains. Next, Part IIprovides readers with detailed insights into algorithms for conformance checking, including the most commonly used formal notions and their instantiation for specific analysis questions. Lastly, Part III highlights applications that help to make sense of conformance checking results, thereby providing a necessary next step to increase the value of a given process model. They help to interpret the outcomes of conformance checking and incorporate them by means of enhancement and repair techniques.

Providing the core building blocks of conformance checking and describing its main applications, this book mainly addresses students specializing in business process management, researchers entering process mining and conformance checking for the first time, and advanced professionals whose work involves process evaluation, modelling and optimization.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319994130
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	11/12/2018
Edition description:	1st ed. 2018
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Josep Carmona is an associate professor at the Computer Science Department of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain. He has taught process mining to students and practitioners for a decade in several countries. He is also an active researcher in process mining, business process mangament, formal methods and data science. He is involved in several open-source projects related to these fields.

Boudewijn van Dongen is chair of the process analytics research group at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Eindhoven University of Technology. He has been an active researcher in the field of process mining since the first papers on the topic appeared in the late nineties and today he focusses on both fundamental questions in the area of conformance checking as well as the engineering aspects thereof. His research group maintains the process mining framework ProM which allows students, researchers and practitionersworldwide to contribute to state-of-the-art developments in process mining.

Andreas Solti is a post doctoral researcher with the Institute for Information Business at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria). His research interests are in the area process mining, process analytics, optimization, and sensor data analytics. He is also interested in adaptive learning technologies that can be supported with machine learning and natural language processing.

Matthias Weidlich heads a research group at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. His research interests include process-oriented and event-driven information systems. Specifically, his group develops formal methods for the specification and verification of such systems, their analysis based on event data, and techniques that optimise their run-time behaviour.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction to Conformance Checking.- 2 The Basics of Processes and Models.- 3 Quality Dimensions for Relating Processes and Models.- 4 A First Take on Conformance Checking.- 5 Preliminaries to Conformance Checking.- 6 Preparation.- 7 Aligning Event Data and Process Models.- 8 Interpreting Alignments.- 9 Advanced Alignment Techniques.- 10 Understanding Processes.- 11 Improving Processes Using Conformance Checking.- 12 Conformance Checking Software.- 13 Epilogue.- References.- Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This long-awaited book paints a comprehensive and enlightening landscape of methods for business process conformance checking. It successfully strikes a sweet spot between providing a pedagogic introduction to the field and deep-diving into technical details for a selected subset of methods. As such, the book is suitable both as a graduate textbook and as a technical reference for researchers and practitioners in the rapidly developing fields of business process analytics and process mining.” (Marlon Dumas, University of Tartu, Estonia)

“The book will be a reference for people interested in the intricate relationship between models and reality.” (Wil van der Aalst, RWTH Aachen University, Germany)

“This book constitutes an important addition to Business Process Management, as it details concepts, tools and techniques for checking conformance of process execution logs with process models. I congratulate the authors fortheir efforts.” (John Mylopoulos, University of Toronto, Canada)

“The textbook investigates the relationship of process models with what happens on the ground. It is formally precise, yet very accessible, and definitely a must-read for everyone interested in process mining.” (Mathias Weske, HPI, University of Potsdam, Germany)

“Written by four BPM experts this is a must-read for everyone interested in conformance checking. The book provides an excellent introduction into conformance checking covering the existing state-of-the art very comprehensively. I can highly recommend the book to students, researchers, and practitioners for an up-to-date knowledge on conformance checking. With the inclusion of exercises and lab sessions the book is also suitable as a textbook.” (Barbara Weber, Technical University of Denmark)