Keynote Summer Simulation Multi-Conference 2018

Keynote at the Summer Simulation Multi-Conference 2018 on the Link between Process Mining and Simulation

This year’s Summer Simulation Multi-Conference 2018 (SummerSim’18) will take place in Bordeaux, France in July 2018. SummerSim is SCS’s premier international conference. Wil van der Aalst will give a keynote with the title “Process Mining and Simulation: A Match Made in Heaven!” In his keynote, he will show that event data are collected everywhere: in logistics, manufacturing, finance, healthcare, customer relationship management, e-learning, e-government, and many other domains.

The events found in these domains typically refer to activities executed by resources at particular times and for particular cases. Process mining provides a novel set of tools to exploit such data. Event data can be used to discover the real processes, to detect deviations from normative processes, and to analyze bottlenecks and waste. However, process mining tends to be backward-looking. Fortunately, simulation can be used to explore different design alternatives and to anticipate performance problems.

Through simulation experiments various “what if” questions can be answered and redesign alternatives can be compared with respect to key performance indicators. However, making a good simulation model may be very time consuming and models may be outdated by the time they are ready. Therefore, process mining and simulation complement each other well. In his keynote, Wil van der Aalst will argue that process mining and simulation form a match made in heaven. He will introduce process mining concepts and show (1) how to discover simulation models, (2) how to view real and simulated event data in a unified manner, and (3) how to make process mining more forward-looking using simulation. He will also explain how his team applied process mining in over 150 organizations, developed the open-source tool ProM, and influenced the 20+ commercial process mining tools available today.