Supporting proces mining by showing events at a glance

Process mining has emerged as a way to analyze processes based on the event logs of the systems that support them. Today's information systems (e.g., ERP systems) log all kinds of events. Moreover, also embedded systems (e.g., medical equipment, copiers, and other high-tech systems) start producing detailed event logs. The presence of event logs is an important enabler for process mining. The primary goal of process mining is to extract knowledge from these logs and use it for a detailed analysis of reality. One of the challenging issues in process mining is process performance analysis. As a method to analyze process performance and to provide new insights, this paper proposes the dotted chart that shows overall process events at a glance. The chart shows process events in a graphical way such that the analyst gets a "helicopter view" of the process and is able to immediately spot opportunities for process improvement. The approach has been implemented in the context of the ProM framework.