Object-centric process mining explained by Wil van der Aalst

Wil van der Aalst – renowned globally as the “godfather of process mining” and chief scientist at Celonis – explored the evolution of object-centric process mining (OCPM) at All Access: Process Intelligence and Process Mining.

OCPM is technology that enables the analysis of interrelated objects and events involved in business processes. It is an emerging branch of process mining that aims to analyze event data from mainstream information systems more naturally.

Drawing on real-world examples, van der Aalst demonstrated how forward-thinking organizations are leveraging OCPM to transform supply chains, streamline manufacturing systems and elevate service delivery.

What is object-centric process mining?

OCPM is an innovation in process mining, van der Aalst explained. Unlike case-centric process mining – which is like taking a 2D X-ray of existing business processes – OCPM is similar to a 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of an organization.

“You should think of OCPM as not having to repeatedly go back to your data sources each time you have a different question,” he said. The goal is to extract all data continuously in a way that allows you to view processes and how they interact with each other from any angle, he added.

OCPM versus classical process mining

Business processes tend to run very differently than most businesses believe, often resembling “spaghetti-like” structures that are difficult to fully track and examine, van der Aalst said. “We are dealing with many different objects that are interacting with each other.” Most inefficiencies, compliance problems and bottlenecks occur within these complex, multi-object structures. This is what classical process mining aims to address and tackle.

OCPM is now exceeding traditional process mining by enriching visibility over business processes. “The difference is that every event is no longer referring to a single case, but is referring to any number of objects,” van der Aalst said. Examples of objects include customers, items, orders, suppliers, invoices and more.

This enables a much richer view of processes, which is very important for modern businesses. It is no longer feasible to squeeze real processes into “cases” – instead, a multitude of interconnected objects and events are required, he added.

“If you look at classical process mining, what you typically do is examine the data that is there and generate views. With OCPM, in many scenarios, you approach it differently. You start thinking about what you would like to know – what are the objects and activities that I’m most interested in? Then you pull that data out of your system.”

An example of OCPM

Van der Aalst presented a simple example of how OCPM works. He cited two online shopping orders containing multiple items that end up in delivery packages that do not necessarily reflect the sequence in which they were purchased (image 1). This creates a series of object and event types (activities) spanning the order itself, the items and the packages.

Image 1

“Case-centric process mining would look at every individual object type in isolation,” (image 2) van der Aalst said. However, if you attempt to merge these, inconsistencies can occur that disrupt the process, he added.

Image 2

By applying OCPM, it is possible to unify all components into an overall model that illustrates the flow of orders, items and packages (image 3). That can then be used to compute the on-time-in full (OTIF) score and better understand problems (image 4).

Image 3

Ultimately, OCPM provides a much more realistic representation of what enterprise data is like and based on that you can automatically discover process models, do conformance checks and make predictions in a far more powerful way, van der Aalst said.

Image 4

An enabler of AI

OCPM is also an enabler of artificial intelligence (AI), according to van der Aalst. “Many organizations want to apply AI in an enterprise setting but do not know how to get started.” With OCPM, businesses are able to replace this “super complicated reality” with something that is “very structured,” he added.

OCPM can provide a lens to look at complex processes and apply AI/machine learning algorithms in a more accurate way to solve specific problems. “How are you going to apply AI without first structuring the problem?” van der Aalst concluded.

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