Process mining and industrial applications: A systematic literature review

• Published date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/kpm.1630
• Date: 01 July 2020

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Process mining and industrial applications: A systematic

literature review

Angelo Corallo | Mariangela Lazoi | Fabrizio Striani

University of Salento, Lecce, Italy

Correspondence

Fabrizio Striani, University of Salento,

Lecce, Italy.

Email: fabrizio.striani@unisalento.it

Abstract

Currently, the process mining aims at an automatic extraction of process knowledge

from the event logs recorded by information systems, and, therefore, by using these

techniques, it becomes possible to grasp the complex nature of industrial processes.

In fact, most of the industrial processes change over time, and through the process

mining techniques, it is possible to analyse these processes as if they were in a steady

state. Starting to this concept, in this paper, we provide a systematic literature review

that analyses the applications of process mining techniques in relation to the indus-

trial context in order to highlight the importance of these new techniques in this sce-

nario. To do the systematic literature review, we use the Tranfield approach (2003),

and we identify the most interesting papers in the sector under analysis. After that,

an in-depth analysis of the selected papers was carried out.

1|INTRODUCTION

Processminingisarecentresearchdiscipline between data mining

and process modeling and analysis. The idea of process mining is

to discover, control, and improve real processes by extracting infor-

mation from event logs easily available in current information

systems.

Process mining includes process discovery, compliance control

through deviance analysis (positive or negative) from so-called best

practices, and model improvement depending on the deviances found.

Through process mining, an important link between data mining

and business process modeling and analysis is built. In fact, these

techniques allow to control, in a very strict way, the validity and reli-

ability of the information of the key processes of the company

organization.

The application of process mining techniques, therefore, are par-

ticularly suitable in an industrial context where complex products are

produced, and, therefore, the analysis of a large amount of informa-

tion is required in order to manage the development of the industrial

applications.

The goal of this paper is to provide a systematic literature review

that analyses the applications of process mining techniques in relation

to the industrial context in order to highlight the importance of these

new techniques in this scenario.

A definition of systematic literature review is “A review of a

clearly formulated question that uses systematic and explicit methods

to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant research, and to col-

lect and analyse data from the studies that are included in the review.

Statistical methods (meta-analysis) may or may not be used to analyse

and summarise the results of the included studies”.

1

Using this systematic search process, we can locate studies, which

address a particular research question, as well as a systematic presen-

tation and synthesis of the characteristics and findings of the results

of this search. The criteria for inclusion and exclusion in the review

are objective, explicitly stated, and consistently implemented such

that the decision to include or exclude particular studies is clear to

readers and another researcher using the same criteria would likely

make the same decision.

Using this systematic search process, we locate the studies, which

address a particular research question, and using some criteria for

inclusion and exclusion, we will be able to include or exclude some

studies.

This paper is structured in five sections: after this brief introduc-

tion (present section), the second section is about the research

method. In this section, we use the Tranfield approach (2003) to make

a systematic literature review. The third section is about the literature

review of the paper selected in the previous section; in this section,

we summarize the literature about process mining application in the

Received: 8 January 2020 Accepted: 17 January 2020

DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1630

Knowl Process Manag. 2020;27:225–233. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/kpm © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 225