Process mining in supply chains: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Performance analysis and continuous process improvement efforts are often supported by the construction of process models representing the interactions of the partners in the supply chain. This study was conducted to determine the state of the art in the process mining field, specifically in the context of cross-organizational process. The Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method is used to review a collection of twenty-one papers that are classified according to the Artifact framework of Hevner, et al. and within the Process Mining framework of Van der Aalst. In the reviewed papers, the authors conducted a variety of techniques to establish the event log, which is then used to perform the process mining analysis. Eight of the reviewed papers focus on the definition of concepts or measures. Five of the papers describe models and other abstractions that are used as a theoretical basis for process mining in the context of supply chains. The majority twenty of papers describe some kind of informal method or formal algorithm to perform process mining analysis. Nine of the papers that propose a formal algorithm also present an accompanying software implementation. Eight papers discuss the data preparation challenges and twelve papers discuss process discovery techniques.