Using the Opportunities and Challenges of Process Mining to Improve Understandability in its Application Domains

Abstract

Process mining is a technique that uses the event logs of a system to discover, monitor, and improve process models. It can be applied in many domains, but the knowledge of a process mining expert is often needed. This research sets out to make process mining more available to new users by making them aware of the opportunities that process mining can bring and the challenges they can encounter during the application. It does so by performing a systematic literature review that analyzes the types, perspectives, opportunities, and challenges of process mining. It looks at these four aspects from six different views, being the main domains in which process mining is applied: Healthcare, ICT, Manufacturing, Education, Finance, and Logistics. This domain perspective is chosen so that domain experts without process mining experience can learn the opportunities and challenges that are specific to their domain. The results show little difference between the domains regarding the types and perspectives of process mining. There are differences between domains in opportunities and challenges. Some are shared by multiple domains whilst others are domain-specific as they originate from the characteristics of that domain. These findings are combined in six infographics that make them accessible to new process miners. It also includes recommendations on how to deal with the challenges.