From process mining to process design: A simulation model to reduce conformance risk

An operator’s mistakes are frequently attributed to inexperience, which leads to a superficial management of these kinds of ‘accidental’ errors. The weakness of this traditional approach is that it isolates the wrong actions from the general systematic context, overlooking potential learning from error analysis. Modern approaches push organisations to prevent the occurrence of errors and, if necessary, to start recovery operations. The methodology proposed in this paper is aimed precisely at this second type of approach. There is a growing need for systems that show errors or deviations from the desired state of the system, leading operators towards the proper execution of tasks and reducing ‘conformance risk’. This paper presents a methodology and a simulation model of ‘Conformance Risk Aware Design’ in order to support decision-makers in modelling business processes.