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Chapter 1
Introduction

Information systems are becoming more and more intertwined with the operational
processes they support. As a result, multitudes of events are recorded by today’s
information systems. Nevertheless, organizations have problems extracting value
from these data. The goal of process mining is to use event data to extract process-
related information, e.g., to automatically discover a process model by observing
events recorded by some enterprise system. To show the importance of process min-
ing, this chapter discusses the spectacular growth of event data and links this to the
limitations of classical approaches to business process management. To explain the
basic concepts, a small example is used. Finally, it is shown that process mining can
play an important role in realizing the promises made by contemporary management
trends such as SOX and Six Sigma.

1.1 Data Explosion

The expanding capabilities of information systems and other systems that depend on
computing, are well characterized by Moore’s law. Gordon Moore, the cofounder of
Intel, predicted in 1965 that the number of components in integrated circuits would
double every year. During the last fifty years, the growth has indeed been expo-
nential, albeit at a slightly slower pace. For example, the number of transistors on
integrated circuits has been doubling every two years. Disk capacity, performance
of computers per unit cost, the number of pixels per dollar, etc. have been growing at
a similar pace. Besides these incredible technological advances, people and organi-
zations depend more and more on computerized devices and information sources on
the Internet. The IDC Digital Universe Study of May 2010 illustrates the spectacular
growth of data [56]. This study estimates that the amount of digital information (cf.
personal computers, digital cameras, servers, sensors) stored exceeds 1 Zettabyte
and predicts that the “digital universe” will to grow to 35 Zettabytes in 2010. The
IDC study characterizes 35 Zettabytes as a “stack of DVDs reaching halfway to
Mars”. This is what we refer to as the data explosion.
W.M.P. van der Aalst, Process Mining, 1
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-19345-3_1, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011