A Process Tree-Based Incomplete Event Log Repair Approach

The low quality of business process event logs—particularly the widespread occurrence of incomplete traces—poses significant challenges to the reliability, accuracy, and efficiency of process mining analysis. In real-world scenarios, these data imperfections severely undermine the practical value of...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Qiushi Wang, Liye Zhang, Rui Cao, Na Guo, Haijun Zhang, Cong Liu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-05-01
Series:Information
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/16/5/390
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849711843977723904
author Qiushi Wang
Liye Zhang
Rui Cao
Na Guo
Haijun Zhang
Cong Liu
author_facet Qiushi Wang
Liye Zhang
Rui Cao
Na Guo
Haijun Zhang
Cong Liu
author_sort Qiushi Wang
collection DOAJ
description The low quality of business process event logs—particularly the widespread occurrence of incomplete traces—poses significant challenges to the reliability, accuracy, and efficiency of process mining analysis. In real-world scenarios, these data imperfections severely undermine the practical value of process mining techniques. The primary research problem addressed in this study is the inefficiency and limited effectiveness of existing Petri-net-based incomplete trace repair approaches, which often struggle to accurately recover missing events in the presence of complex and nested loop structures. To tackle these limitations, we aim to develop a faster and more accurate approach for repairing incomplete event logs. Specifically, we propose a novel repair approach based on process trees as an alternative to traditional Petri nets, thus alleviating issues such as state space explosion. Our approach incorporates process tree model decomposition and innovative branch indexing techniques, enabling rapid localization of candidate branches for repair and a significant reduction in the solution space. Furthermore, by leveraging activity information within the traces, our approach achieves efficient and precise repair of loop nodes through a single traversal of the process tree. To comprehensively evaluate our approach, we conduct experiments on four real-life and five synthetic event logs, comparing performance against state-of-the-art techniques. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach consistently delivers repair accuracies exceeding 70%, with time efficiency improved by up to three orders of magnitude. These findings validate the superior accuracy, efficiency, and scalability of the proposed approach, highlighting its strong potential for practical applications in business process mining.
format Article
id doaj-art-b3ce541add8043e3b60722c595741e13
institution DOAJ
issn 2078-2489
language English
publishDate 2025-05-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Information
spelling doaj-art-b3ce541add8043e3b60722c595741e132025-08-20T03:14:31ZengMDPI AGInformation2078-24892025-05-0116539010.3390/info16050390A Process Tree-Based Incomplete Event Log Repair ApproachQiushi Wang0Liye Zhang1Rui Cao2Na Guo3Haijun Zhang4Cong Liu5School of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, ChinaSchool of Information and Control Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao 266520, ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, ChinaJinan Inspur Technology Co., Ltd., Jinan 250101, ChinaSchool of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, ChinaThe low quality of business process event logs—particularly the widespread occurrence of incomplete traces—poses significant challenges to the reliability, accuracy, and efficiency of process mining analysis. In real-world scenarios, these data imperfections severely undermine the practical value of process mining techniques. The primary research problem addressed in this study is the inefficiency and limited effectiveness of existing Petri-net-based incomplete trace repair approaches, which often struggle to accurately recover missing events in the presence of complex and nested loop structures. To tackle these limitations, we aim to develop a faster and more accurate approach for repairing incomplete event logs. Specifically, we propose a novel repair approach based on process trees as an alternative to traditional Petri nets, thus alleviating issues such as state space explosion. Our approach incorporates process tree model decomposition and innovative branch indexing techniques, enabling rapid localization of candidate branches for repair and a significant reduction in the solution space. Furthermore, by leveraging activity information within the traces, our approach achieves efficient and precise repair of loop nodes through a single traversal of the process tree. To comprehensively evaluate our approach, we conduct experiments on four real-life and five synthetic event logs, comparing performance against state-of-the-art techniques. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach consistently delivers repair accuracies exceeding 70%, with time efficiency improved by up to three orders of magnitude. These findings validate the superior accuracy, efficiency, and scalability of the proposed approach, highlighting its strong potential for practical applications in business process mining.https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/16/5/390process miningprocess treeincomplete trace repairevent log
spellingShingle Qiushi Wang
Liye Zhang
Rui Cao
Na Guo
Haijun Zhang
Cong Liu
A Process Tree-Based Incomplete Event Log Repair Approach
Information
process mining
process tree
incomplete trace repair
event log
title A Process Tree-Based Incomplete Event Log Repair Approach
title_full A Process Tree-Based Incomplete Event Log Repair Approach
title_fullStr A Process Tree-Based Incomplete Event Log Repair Approach
title_full_unstemmed A Process Tree-Based Incomplete Event Log Repair Approach
title_short A Process Tree-Based Incomplete Event Log Repair Approach
title_sort process tree based incomplete event log repair approach
topic process mining
process tree
incomplete trace repair
event log
url https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/16/5/390
work_keys_str_mv AT qiushiwang aprocesstreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT liyezhang aprocesstreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT ruicao aprocesstreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT naguo aprocesstreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT haijunzhang aprocesstreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT congliu aprocesstreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT qiushiwang processtreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT liyezhang processtreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT ruicao processtreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT naguo processtreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT haijunzhang processtreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach
AT congliu processtreebasedincompleteeventlogrepairapproach