Research
The seven most recent publications by members of the group:- A Distance Metric for Object-Centric Process Mining. Jonas Hildebrand, Jan Niklas van Detten, Sander J. J. Leemans. International Conference on Process Mining workshops in press.
- Skip Probabilities for Subprocesses. Philipp Bär, Adam T. Burke, Moe T. Wynn, Sander J.J. Leemans. International Conference on Process Mining 2025.
- Your Secret Is Safe With Me: Federated Directly-Follows Graph Discovery. Christian Rennert, Julian Albers, Sander J. J. Leemans, Wil M. P. van der Aalst. International Conference on Process Mining 2025.
- Modeling and Discovering Dynamic Identity Relations in Object-Centric Process Mining. Jan Niklas van Detten, Pol Schumacher, Sander J. J. Leemans. International Conference on Process Mining 2025.
- Hypothesis Testing for Processes. Cameron Pitsch, Tobias Brockhoff, Jan Niklas Adams, Sander J. J. Leemans, Leo Anthony Celi, Wil M. P. van der Aalst. International Conference on Process Mining 2025.
- Discovering Stochastic Causal Nets. Tian Li, Sander J. J. Leemans, Artem Polyvyanyy. International Conference on Process Mining 2025.
- Out of Babylon: Object-Centric Conformance Checking on Graph-Based Abstractions. Erik Wrede, Jan Niklas van Detten, Lukas Liss, Sander J.J. Leemans. International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems 2025.
Software
The BPM group maintains several pieces of software, packages and tools.- Ebi is a stochastic process mining software suite. For more information, see https://ebitools.org.
- Tikz-bpmn is a Latex Tikz library to draw BPMN models. For more information, see https://ctan.org/pkg/tikz-bpmn.
- Visual Miner is a process mining tool that combines several process mining techniques in a single graphical package. For more information, see http://visualminer.org.
Teaching
Bachelor Course: Business Process Modelling & Computation
In this Bachelor course, we will dive into the art of modelling business processes, and how to use computation to assess the performance and quality of business process models.A sub-set of the videos we use for the lectures is available on YouTube.
If you pass this course with a 3.0 or higher, you are eligible to obtain a "Process Analyst" certification of the Gesellschaft für Prozessmanagement without taking any further training or exam.
Currently/next offered: 2026 ws, 2025 ws.
Previously offered: 2024 ws, 2023 ws.
Bachelor Seminar: Process Mining with Frequencies
In this seminar, we will explore a range of topics related to process mining techniques that incorporate frequency and likelihood information from event logs. This frequency-aware perspective recognizes that not all observed process behavior carries equal importance, as those occurring more frequently often provide more meaningful insights into actual process dynamics and performance. Recently, numerous such techniques have been proposed, offering new ways to discover and analyze business processes based on their probabilistic properties. Each participant will choose a paper, present the ideas of the paper in a presentation, and write a short report. The presentations will take place in a session starting in the second half of the semester.Currently/next offered: 2026 ss.
Bachelor Lab: Full-Stack Development of Advances in Object-Centric Process Mining
In this lab, students will collect hands-on experience in full-stack software development using Rust & Javascript. The goal is to implement recent advances in object-centric process mining and integrate them into an open-source tool suite that is currently being developed at our chair in cooperation with the BMFTR and Celonis. The course structure covers all relevant aspects of software development, including feature analysis, architecture sketching, code documentation, and prototype presentation. The work will be done in groups, and the final presentation is set to be done in person.Currently/next offered: 2026 ss.
Bachelor Proseminar: AI meets Process Mining
In this proseminar, we will explore a range of topics at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and process mining, examining how AI techniques enhance the monitoring of business processes from event logs. The goals of this proseminar are to develop students' knowledge of rapidly evolving areas at the forefront of process mining, enhance students' analytical skills of scientific work, and strengthen students' presentation and communication abilities. Each participant will choose a paper, present the ideas of the paper in a presentation, and write a short report. The presentations will take place in a session starting in the second half of the semester.Currently/next offered: 2026 ss.
Master Course: Fundamentals of Business Process Management
In this Master course, we will provide a broad introduction into business process management (BPM), and cover several areas of BPM in depth, such as process modelling, process analysis, process mining and process redesign. After this course, you’ll be able to apply business process management strategies to organisations, to communicate business processes in formal modelling notation, to analyse a process running in an actual organisation, propose improvements to the process, and use process data to substantiate your findings. Finally, you are able to communicate your findings in a corporate-appropriate style.A sub-set of the videos we use for the lectures is available on YouTube.
If you pass this course with a 3.0 or higher, you are eligible to obtain a "Process Analyst" or "Process Manager" certification of the Gesellschaft für Prozessmanagement without taking any further training or exam.
Currently/next offered: 2026 ws, 2026 ss, 2025 ws.
Previously offered: 2024 ws, 2024 ss, 2023 ws, 2023 ss, 2022 ws.
Master Seminar: Process Mining with Frequencies
In this seminar, we will explore a range of topics related to process mining techniques that incorporate frequency and likelihood information from event logs. This frequency-aware perspective recognizes that not all observed process behavior carries equal importance, as those occurring more frequently often provide more meaningful insights into actual process dynamics and performance. Recently, numerous such techniques have been proposed, offering new ways to discover and analyze business processes based on their probabilistic properties. Each participant will choose a paper, present the ideas of the paper in a presentation, and write a short report. The presentations will take place in a session starting in the second half of the semester.Currently/next offered: 2026 ss.
Master Lab: Full-Stack Development of Advances in Object-Centric Process Mining
In this lab, students will collect hands-on experience in full-stack software development using Rust & Javascript. The goal is to implement recent advances in object-centric process mining and integrate them into an open-source tool suite that is currently being developed at our chair in cooperation with the BMFTR and Celonis. The course structure covers all relevant aspects of software development, including feature analysis, architecture sketching, code documentation, and prototype presentation. The work will be done in groups, and the final presentation is set to be done in person.Currently/next offered: 2026 ss.
Depth-Area Oral Colloquium (Schwerpunktkolloquium)
It is possible to do a depth-area oral colloquium in the BPM group. To this end, you should have at least followed the Fundamentals of Business Process Management course, plus ideally a seminar. To reach the required three courses, you'll need another course from another group, with a second examiner from that respective group.Please note that the PADS chair does not accept depth-area oral colloquia unless all three courses are from their chair. Still, the BPM group can assess Business Process Intelligence and Advanced Process Mining, however we'll need another examiner.
The group
| Office | E2356-6009 to 6011 Ahornstraße 55 52074 Aachen, Germany |
Prof. Sander Leemans
Group lead.
Born in Boxtel, the Netherlands, Univ-Prof. Dr. Ir. Sander J.J. Leemans is a professor (W2) at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule University (RWTH), Aachen, Germany.
His research interests include process mining, process discovery, conformance checking, stochastic process mining, and robotic process automation. In particular, he specialises in making solid academic techniques available to end-users, analysts and industry partners. He teaches business process management, business process modelling and business process improvement.
| Personal website | https://leemans.ch |
| Additional engagements | Fraunhofer Gesellschaft |
Tian Li
Scientific employee.
Tian Li is a joint PhD student at RWTH Aachen University and the University of Melbourne. His research focuses on stochastic process mining. At RWTH, he is actively engaged in courses Fundamentals of Business Process Management, Business Process Modelling & Computation, Reliability in Process Mining, and Advanced Topics in Stochastic Process Mining.
| Additional engagements: | University of Melbourne |
Niklas van Detten
Scientific employee.
Niklas is a PhD student at RWTH, and a working student at Celonis. His research focuses on modeling formalisms and process discovery algorithms in the object-centric setting. He is engaged in our courses Fundamentals of Business Process Management, Business Process Modelling & Computation and the BPM Software Lab.
| Additional engagements: | Celonis |
Student projects
Open student projects
-
Bachelor project:
Process Discovery in Rust.
Applications close 1 December 2025. -
Bachelor project:
Stochastic Process Discovery: Toothpaste Miner.
Applications close 20 December 2025. -
Master project:
Comparing Event Logs.
In collaboration with Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Applications close 1 January 2026. - Bachelor or Master project: BYO. Got an idea that lies in the field of the BPM group? Feel free to let us know; if it's interesting, we might consider it.
Previous and ongoing projects
-
2025
- KPI Analysis in the O2C - AR Process. A.K. In collaboration with Bosch (bachelor).
- Stochastic Recall and Precision. Y.Z. (bachelor).
- Visual Investigation of Object-Centric Case Graphs. P.S. (bachelor).
- GPU Programming for Process Mining. J.M. (bachelor).
- Process Tree Alignments in Rust. F.R. In collaboration with i9 - Process and Data Science (bachelor).
- Discovery of Stochastic BPMN Models. J.D. (bachelor).
- Conformance Checking (EMSC) in Rust. L.M. In collaboration with i9 - Process and Data Science (bachelor).
- Visualizations for Object-Centric Process Trees . P.A.D.P. (bachelor).
- Stochastic BPMN Discovery. L.O. (bachelor).
- Object-Centric Discovery through Case Notions. P.F. (bachelor).
- Extending advanced case notion measures in Rust. R.S. (bachelor).
- Object-Centric Conformance Checking in Rust. M.B. (bachelor).
- One Case Notion to Rule Them All. F.S. In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology (master).
- Duplicated Activities in Process Discovery. J.S. (master).
- Visual Object-Centric Process Discovery. S.S. (master).
- Sampling in Process Mining. M.M. (master).
- Studying online browsing behaviour using process mining. K.S. In collaboration with Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften (master).
- Generalised stochastic labelled Petri nets. D.P. In collaboration with i9 - Process and Data Science (master).
- Stochastic Conformance Checking with BPMN. A.K. (master).
- Stochastic BPMN discovery. S.V. (master).
- Process Mining: Analysing Resources. G.S. (master).
- Developing Heuristc Fallthroughs for the Inductive Miner. C.S. (master).
- Object-Centric Process Mining using Graphs. E.W. (master).
- Beyond Incomplete Process Insights - Contributions to Conformance Checking and Stochastic Process Analysis. P.B. In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology (master).
- Process Differences in Power Plants. S.W. In collaboration with Uniper (master).
- Stochastic Conformance Checking with Partial Trace Matching. P.M. (master).
- Testing Event Logs & Process Models. (master).
- Data Quality Improvement in Integrated Patient Care. J.D. In collaboration with Fraunhofer (phd).
- Process Mining with Exogenous Data. A.B. In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology (phd).
-
2024
- Approximate Inductive Miner Filtering. M.D. (bachelor).
- Haskell & Process Mining. P.F. (bachelor).
- Stochastic Process Discovery in Python. M.A.K. (bachelor).
- Optimizing Cohort Analysis: Exploring Heuristics for Refined Splits on Numeric Attributes. L.J.C. (bachelor).
- Batching in Process Mining. B.B. In collaboration with Celonis (master).
- Querying Infinite Process Models. E.P. (master).
- Guaranteeing Privacy through Differential Privacy for Healthcare Process Data. H.U. In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology (master).
- Enhancing Operational Efficiency through Process Mining and Robotic Process Automation: A Comprehensive Study of Customer Journey and Meter to Cash Processes. D.I. In collaboration with Stadtwerke Münster (master).
- Identify process differences in Power Plants with the help of Process Mining. L.B. In collaboration with Uniper (master).
- A Conceptualisation of Process Mining Impacts. A.M. In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology (phd).
- Stochastic Process Mining. A.B. In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology (phd).
-
2023
- Investigating the Impact of Training Workers on Data Quality. H.F. In collaboration with RWTH Mechanical Engineering (bachelor).
- Analysis of the Influence of different Reward and Observation Designs in the Context of Reinforcement Learning for Production Scenarios of Modular Car Body Manufacturing. T.N.L. In collaboration with Mercedes-Benz Research (bachelor).
- Visualizing and Discovering Causal Relations to End Users for Optimization of Process Analysis. P.F. (master).
- Comparative Process Mining in Healthcare. T.M. In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology (master).
- An Approximate Inductive Miner. J.N.V.D. In collaboration with Celonis (master).
- Comparative Process Mining in Healthcare. A.T. In collaboration with Queensland University of Technology (master).
- Visualisation of Causal Reasoning over Control-Flow Decisions in Process Models. A.P. (master).
- Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Stochastic Process Discovery. T.L. In collaboration with University of Melbourne (phd).
- Object-Centric Process Mining. J.N.V.D. In collaboration with Celonis (phd).