Proactive Process Adaptation Using Deep Learning Ensembles

Abstract

Proactive process adaptation can prevent and mitigate upcoming problems during process execution. Proactive adaptation decisions are based on predictions about how an ongoing process instance will unfold up to its completion. On the one hand, these predictions must have high accuracy, as, for instance, false negative predictions mean that necessary adaptations are missed. On the other hand, these predictions should be produced early during process execution, as this leaves more time for adaptations, which typically have non-negligible latencies. However, there is an important tradeoff between prediction accuracy and earliness. Later predictions typically have a higher accuracy, because more information about the ongoing process instance is available. To address this tradeoff, we use an ensemble of deep learning models that can produce predictions at arbitrary points during process execution and that provides reliability estimates for each prediction. We use these reliability estimates to dynamically determine the earliest prediction with sufficient accuracy, which is used as basis for proactive adaptation. Experimental results indicate that our dynamic approach may offer cost savings of 27% on average when compared to using a static prediction point.