Modeling the QuantoBikes sales process

Many business systems record different stages in a business process. A typical enterprise resource planning (ERP) system allows us to define the stages, for an invoice to be sent, for example. It is important to note that recording these stages assumes that a business process works in that specific way. The reality is almost always different.

In fact, analyzing the difference between a designed process and the actual process is a field of its own, named process mining. When you consider a large number of invoices, you will commonly find many deviations from the process as it is designed. Optimizing the business process starts with knowing which variants of the process occur. Some odd variants may have a large impact on throughput or even profitability; eliminating these variants by specific corrective actions can significantly improve business process performance. Analysts who apply process mining can also apply machine learning to predict...