One of the most critical issues when deploying process mining in ERP systems is unavailability of event logs in an ERP system. And even if they exist then they are only in form of information about executed business processes, which vary in quality and content depending on the ERP system being used. Event logs are usually collected manually or by using plug-in programs developed by process mining application vendors for specific ERP product. This type of event log data collection requires knowledge about the targeted ERP system in terms of its system architecture, database structure and the business logic behind the execution of the business processes embedded in the system. Such collection methods are definitely not an easy undertaking, as there are many ERP systems available in the market, each in multiple versions. Moreover, process mining applications have different analysis frameworks and hence different requirements to format and content of an event log and it could be diverse from those provided by different ERP system. The main idea of this paper is to propose a new method to extract standardized ERP information related to business processes executed by an ERP system. The idea is to avoid accessing the ERP database to build the required event log for a process mining tool. Instead, trace data is used by tracking the ERP system and user interaction to simplify provision of generic event log data in standardized way, so that it can be used by any process mining tool. To use such trace data for process mining, ERP vendors need to meet certain prerequisites.

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Process Mining and Standardized Generic Business Process Tracing for ERP Systems: Requirements for ERP Vendors

  • Gamal Kassem

摘要

One of the most critical issues when deploying process mining in ERP systems is unavailability of event logs in an ERP system. And even if they exist then they are only in form of information about executed business processes, which vary in quality and content depending on the ERP system being used. Event logs are usually collected manually or by using plug-in programs developed by process mining application vendors for specific ERP product. This type of event log data collection requires knowledge about the targeted ERP system in terms of its system architecture, database structure and the business logic behind the execution of the business processes embedded in the system. Such collection methods are definitely not an easy undertaking, as there are many ERP systems available in the market, each in multiple versions. Moreover, process mining applications have different analysis frameworks and hence different requirements to format and content of an event log and it could be diverse from those provided by different ERP system. The main idea of this paper is to propose a new method to extract standardized ERP information related to business processes executed by an ERP system. The idea is to avoid accessing the ERP database to build the required event log for a process mining tool. Instead, trace data is used by tracking the ERP system and user interaction to simplify provision of generic event log data in standardized way, so that it can be used by any process mining tool. To use such trace data for process mining, ERP vendors need to meet certain prerequisites.