BIPM | Assignment 3: Process Modelling

Warning: Before getting started with this assignment, it is highly recommended that you do the ProM Getting Started Tutorial and walk through the Exercises, focussing on the part on the discovery of Petri nets (and not so much on the other models and techniques).

To get ProM running under UNIX, edit ProM641.sh and change JAVA=java to JAVA=/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.7.0-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java

---

Data for this assignment

The datafile can be found here: BPI_Challenge_2012.xes.gz (unzip and import this file in ProM). The amount (size of the loan) requested by the customer is indicated in the case attribute AMOUNT_REQ, which is global, i.e. every case contains this attribute. The event log is a merger of three intertwined sub processes. The first letter of each task name identifies from which sub process (source) it originated from. Feel free to run analyses on the process as a whole, on selections of the whole process and/or the individual sub processes. Event types are explained in the table below.

Informal process description: An application is submitted through a webpage. Then, some automatic checks are performed, after which the application is complemented with additional information. This information is obtained trough contacting the customer by phone. If an applicant is eligible, an offer is sent to the client by mail. After this offer is received back, it is assessed. When it is incomplete, missing information is added by again contacting the customer. Then a final assessment is done, after which the application is approved and activated.

Event Type	Meaning
States starting with ‘A_’	States of the application
States starting with ‘O_’	States of the offer belonging to the application
States starting with ‘W_’	States of the work item belonging to the application
COMPLETE	The task (of type ‘A_’ or ‘O_’) is completed
SCHEDULE	The work item (of type ‘W_’) is created in the queue (automatic step following manual actions)
START	The work item (of type ‘W_’) is obtained by the resource
COMPLETE	The work item (of type ‘W_’) is released by the resource and put back in the queue or transferred to another queue (SCHEDULE)

---

Your Assignment

The goal of the assignment is to become familiar with a tool such as ProM to analyze business processes based on event data. You will need to write a report on your activities, addressing both technical (Process Mining) and domain-specific (Process Analysis) aspects:

Process Mining [60p]

1. Analyze the event logs using ProM in at least four different ways:

   1. [10p] the Alpha Miner and Petri Nets
   2. [10p] the Fuzzy Miner
   3. [10p] a Dotted Chart Analysis
   4. [10p] the plain "View" tab and a miner of your choice

   For each technique, report the most important findings and results. Which steps did you take in the ProM tool to obtain the desired results? What settings and parameters did you tune? Please do include plenty of screenshots and diagrams.

2. [20p] Explain the differences between the different analysis techniques in terms of what information they conceptually provide, and how they work in practice on larger datasets such as the one provided in this assignment.

Process Analysis [40p]

The bank is interested in all valuable information hidden in the event data. The main question is: what does the process model look like, and what can we learn from it?

• [20p] Try to answer some of the questions below to the best of your ability. [20p] Make sure to relate them to the financial application domain, explaining how answering these questions may improve the bank's business processes:

  • What is the average/ minimum/ maximum throughput time of cases?
  • Which paths take too much time on average? How many cases follow these routings? What are the critical sub-paths for these paths?
  • What is the average service time for each task?
  • How much time was spent between any two tasks in the process model?
  • Are there any non-intentional dead-ends? I.e. are customers getting stuck somewhere in the process?

  Think of plotting some relevant values, averages and distributions. Remember to always provide an answer which is based on the data, and always explain how you obtained your answer.

Optional: convert the .xes-data into .csv and also experiment with exploring this data using EventPad [up to 10p bonus points]).

---

Good luck with the assignment! Ask questions. A lot, if you have to. The deadline is posted on the course website.