Improving efficiency for discovering business processes containing invisible tasks in non-free choice

Abstract

Abstract Process discovery helps companies automatically discover their existing business processes based on the vast, stored event log. The process discovery algorithms have been developed rapidly to discover several types of relations, i.e., choice relations, non-free choice relations with invisible tasks. Invisible tasks in non-free choice, introduced by $$\alpha ^{\$ }$$ α $ method, is a type of relationship that combines the non-free choice and the invisible task. $$\alpha ^{\$ }$$ α $ proposed rules of ordering relations of two activities for determining invisible tasks in non-free choice. The event log records sequences of activities, so the rules of $$\alpha ^{\$ }$$ α $ check the combination of invisible task within non-free choice. The checking processes are time-consuming and result in high computing times of $$\alpha ^{\$ }$$ α $ . This research proposes Graph-based Invisible Task (GIT) method to discover efficiently invisible tasks in non-free choice. GIT method develops sequences of business activities as graphs and determines rules to discover invisible tasks in non-free choice based on relationships of the graphs. The analysis of the graph relationships by rules of GIT is more efficient than the iterative process of checking combined activities by $$\alpha ^{\$ }$$ α $ . This research measures the time efficiency of storing the event log and discovering a process model to evaluate GIT algorithm. Graph database gains highest storing computing time of batch event logs; however, this database obtains low storing computing time of streaming event logs. Furthermore, based on an event log with 99 traces, GIT algorithm discovers a process model 42 times faster than α++ and 43 times faster than α$. GIT algorithm can also handle 981 traces, while α++ and α$ has maximum traces at 99 traces. Discovering a process model by GIT algorithm has less time complexity than that by $$\alpha ^{\$ }$$ α $ , wherein GIT obtains $$O(n^{3} )$$ O ( n 3 ) and $$\alpha ^{\$ }$$ α $ obtains $$O(n^{4} )$$ O ( n 4 ) . Those results of the evaluation show a significant improvement of GIT method in term of time efficiency.

Keywords

• Business process
• Graph-database
• Invisible task
• Non-free-choice
• Process discovery