Supporting automatic system dynamics model generation for simulation in the context of process mining

Abstract

Using process mining actionable insights can be extracted from the event data stored in information systems. The analysis of event data may reveal many performance and compliance problems, and generate ideas for performance improvements. This is valuable, however, process mining techniques tend to be backward-looking and provide little support for forward-looking approaches since potential process interventions are not assessed. System dynamics complements process mining since it aims to capture the relationships between different factors at a higher abstraction level, and uses simulation to predict the effects of process improvement actions. In this paper, we propose a new approach to support the design of system dynamics models using event data. We extract a variety of performance parameters from the current state of the process using historical execution data and provide an interactive platform for modeling the performance metrics as system dynamics models. The generated models are able to answer “what-if” questions. Our experiments, using event logs including different relationships between parameters, show that our approach is able to generate valid models and uncover the underlying relations.