The Business Process Management: foundations and engineering (BPM) group is a group in the Informatik i9 chair of the RWTH Aachen University. The focus of the BPM group is on the combination of data-based process analysis and the optimisation of processes in organisations.

Job openings

• In collaboration with the University of Melbourne, the BPM group is offering a dual PhD position, to be filled by a candidate partly in Aachen and partly in Melbourne, Australia.

  Organisations create value for customers by running business processes. The aim of process mining is to uncover how these processes actually work, as opposed to how process stakeholders think they work, such that they can be improved based on objective, factual insights. The field of process mining has long studied how to discover a process model from an event log. However, a process model shows what activities are executed in a process, but not how likely the activities are. Thus, efforts of analysts may go wasted on exceptional behaviour and noise.

  In this PhD project, we aim to help analysts see the forest for the trees, by including information on the frequency of behaviour into process models. That is, we take process discovery a step further, by developing techniques for automated stochastic process discovery. The project involves developing algorithms to discover stochastic process models, designing scientific experiments to verify their working in real-life settings, and assist in applying stochastic process mining techniques in industry partners’ settings.

  more information

Teaching

2023ss 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.

2023ss seminar: reliability in process mining

Process mining is a field of research that produces software and methodologies to optimise processes in organisations using recorded information. Analysts use process mining tools to analyse this information. For instance, bottlenecks, inefficiencies and optimisation opportunities may be identified. As large investment decisions may be based on these conclusions, it is of vital importance that the accuracy of process mining insights can be established, and that analysts can trust what the software indicates. This may have both technical and organisational aspects.

In this seminar, we are studying the accuracy and reliability of process mining techniques.

Student project openings

• Bachelor project: Haskell & Process Models
  (apply by 01-03-23)
• Master project: Querying Infinite Process Models
  (apply by 01-03-23)
• Bachelor or Master project: BYO. Got an idea that lies in the field of this group? Feel free to let us know; if it's interesting, we might consider it.

About the group leader

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.

Office	E2356-6011 Ahornstrasse 55 52074 Aachen, Germany
Consultation hour	Every Tuesday 16:00-17:00 Zoom link on request
Website	https://leemans.ch