Splitting Long Event Sequences Drawn from Cyclic Processes for Discovering Workflow Nets

Abstract

This paper addresses the preprocessing of event sequences issued from cyclic discrete event processes, which perform activities continuously whose delimitation of jobs or cases is not explicit. The sequences include several occurrences of the same events due to the iterative behaviour, such that discovery methods conceived for workflow nets (WFN) cannot process such sequences. In order to handle this issue, a novel technique for splitting a set of long event traces S = {S_k} (|S| ≥ 1) exhibiting the behaviour of cyclic processes is presented. The aim of this technique is to obtain from S a log λ = {σ_i} of event traces representing the same behaviour, which can be processed by methods that discover WFN. The procedures derived from this technique have polynomial-time complexity.