Improving business performance using process-mining software

The need

All organisations experience inefficiencies in processes that lead to missed deadlines, lost opportunities and poor compliance, and these inefficiencies spawn even greater problems such as decreases in profits, growth and overall morale.

Traditionally, business processes are analysed by observing and interviewing the people who use them. This is labour intensive and error-prone.

Most organisations also use digital technologies that generate huge volumes of process data. Enterprise systems – such as customer relationship management software, payroll systems and project management software – track information such as what tasks are performed, by whom, and in what order.

Process-mining software takes the legwork and margin for error out of process analysis by extracting useful process data from a business’ enterprise systems. It finds bottlenecks, repetition and waste that affect business performance. 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. Professor La Rosa joined the University of Melbourne in February 2018, bringing with him a team of nine researchers.

The research is a collaboration with Professor Marlon Dumas and his team from the University of Tartu, Estonia, as well as groups from other research institutions.

Together, they 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.

Professor La Rosa says the Apromore software – so named because it started as an ‘Advanced Process Model Repository’ – is the only commercial software in the process intelligence space that is truly inspired and informed by the latest research and innovation.

“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, in order 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.”

As part of Apromore’s partnership with the University, researchers field-tested the software with customers in different sectors and provided feedback that helped to refine the software.

The research has been supported by over $A10 million from Australian and European funding schemes and from University of Melbourne seed funding.

Technology development history

The concept of process mining was introduced in academia in the early 2000s. Since then, no open-source software to analyse business processes had been developed for commercial use.

Addressing this gap in the market, Professor La Rosa, Professor Dumas and two co-founders launched Apromore in September 2019 to further develop and commercialise the software. Professor La Rosa is CEO of the company.

The intellectual property (IP) born from Professor La Rosa and his group’s research at the University of Melbourne was transferred to Apromore in return for equity. As part of the agreement, the University also invested in the company, and following its establishment, the University moved into a partnership role with the start-up.

“The University supported the development and commercialisation of the software through significant seed funding, IP transfer and commercialisation advice on how to best spin out the initiative. Over an 18-month period, many different approaches were assessed.”

In its Series A round, Apromore raised $A6.8 million from investors including the University, German software vendor GBTEC, and Australian consulting and technology firm Leonardo.

The Series A investment is being used to further develop the software for business use. In particular, the company will make the software more robust, scalable and secure. They will also add features to enable the software to automatically find ways to improve processes, simulate scenarios to help businesses plan, and identify and analyse the causes of problems.

GBTEC also entered a strategic partnership with Apromore to incorporate the process-mining technology as a core component in GBTEC’s business process modelling and automation software, BIC Platform.

Apromore offers two versions of its software. The Community Edition is free to download and use. Harnessing a collaborative approach, contributors from universities, research institutes and private organizations have added updates and fixes to the Community Edition over the past 10 years.

The Enterprise Edition, which includes support and advanced features, is available on subscription. Businesses can run the Enterprise Edition on premises,  in the cloud or in a hybrid model.

The open-source core of Apromore is shared under a free-software license called a GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL 3.0). This gives researchers and professionals the freedom to use, change and share the code.