AI software harnessing untapped process data to improve business efficiency and drive operational excellence

While most organisations have now transitioned to digital business software, much of the data that is gathered remains under-utilised as deep analysis of this data can be laborious, costly and time consuming. A spin-out housed at the University of Melbourne is changing all that with its revolutionary process mining solution.

The need

Traditional software doesn’t address some of the biggest problems businesses face, such as understanding how their processes really work, improving and validating workflows, and using efficiencies to drive greater value. Traditionally, business processes are analysed by observing and interviewing the people who use them. This is labour intensive and error prone.

Process mining software takes the legwork and margin for error out of process analysis by extracting useful process data from a business’ enterprise systems, like enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. It finds points of process friction or bottlenecks, repetition and waste that affect business performance and customer experience. It can also help businesses to assess how well they comply with service-level agreements, their own standard operating procedures or regulatory frameworks.

The research

Apromore’s process-mining software is based on research led by Professor Marcello La Rosa. He began the project in 2009 at the Queensland University of Technology which later led to a collaboration with Professor Marlon Dumas and his team from the University of Tartu, Estonia, as well as groups from other research institutions.

Together with their teams, the two academics built the software using expertise in computer science, information systems, business process management, statistics, graph theory, data mining and machine learning. The software connects to a business’ enterprise systems and automatically collects and analyses data, looking for weak spots. Based on these analyses, the business can adapt its processes and then use the software to track the results.

Going to market

Despite the concept of process mining being developed by researchers more than 20 years ago, a commercially developed software product had not yet been designed. As such, Apromore was jointly founded in 2019 by Professor Marcello La Rosa, Professor Marlon Dumas and the University of Melbourne.

Co-Founder and CEO of Apromore, Professor La Rosa said commercialising Apromore was about bridging the gap between cutting-edge research and real-world impact. “We saw an opportunity to empower organisations with advanced process intelligence capabilities that were previously confined to academia. By transforming our research into a robust, user-friendly platform, we aimed to help businesses unlock valuable insights, drive efficiency, and foster continuous improvement,” Professor La Rosa said. “Our mission remains clear – to leverage data and AI to empower business users to transform the way they serve their customers by optimising their business processes.”

Professor La Rosa and his team relocated from the Queensland University of Technology in the hopes of actualising more than a decade of research. This move proved fruitful in helping them to innovate and co-design with other businesses and academics.

“At Melbourne Connect, we’re surrounded by some of the greatest startups in the country, and literally next door to the University of Melbourne’s School of Computing and Information Systems – my own school,” Professor La Rosa said.

“It hosts some of the world’s leading research groups in such areas as process mining, AI and human-computer interaction, so it creates the perfect environment for Apromore to continuously learn, experiment and co-innovate, which is in the very nature of our company.

“We’re proud that over a third of our engineering team have graduated with PhDs in process mining and AI, including six PhD graduates from the University of Melbourne.”

The impact

The company has been steadfastly working with customers to create a solution in process mining software that allows businesses to deeply analyse their processes, identify issues and transform their operations, resulting in much greater efficiencies and outcomes than earlier methods.

Professor Marlon Dumas, Co-Founder and CPO of Apromore, explains the importance of customer insight in growing the company. “What started as a research idea has grown into a leading process mining solution – and that’s because we’ve strived to combine research-driven innovation with feedback from users, customers and partners,” Professor Dumas said.  “This is crucial because the most impactful process mining initiatives are those that are started and driven by business teams.”

In the coming years, Apromore will refine its commercial enterprise solution further to be more scalable, robust and secure. Its unique origin as a research-backed product will continue as legacy to the product’s evolution. “Apromore is the only commercial software in the process intelligence space that is truly inspired and informed by the latest research and innovation,” Professor La Rosa said. “As organisations are achieving higher levels of process maturity, they demand more advanced, yet simple-to-use capabilities to gain insights from their transactional data to optimise their operations. Apromore combines these two aspects of ease of use and sophistication, making it particularly attractive as an alternative to other tools.”