Reflections on the Canadian Process Mining Roadshow
challenge and study communityDescribed by Arik Senderovich, Daniel Amyot, and Shahin Karimidorabati
Have you ever felt like a devoted fan following your favorite band on tour? I hadn’t –until Wil van der Aalst embarked on his first-ever visit to Canada for a remarkable roadshow. Over the course of three days, he shared his expertise across two Canadian provinces, engaging both seasoned professionals and curious newcomers alike. As he noted: "Once you’ve seen process mining, you can’t unsee it."
In this reflection, I (Arik Senderovich) will cover the first two days of the roadshow in Toronto, while my colleagues, Daniel Amyot and Shahin Karimidorabati, will take you through the events of Days 2 and 3 in Ottawa and Montreal.
Day 0 - Private social fun (20 May 2024 - aka Victoria Day)
Before the official start of the roadshow in Toronto, a casual meeting took place on Victoria Day, a statutory holiday in Canada. a holiday that we passionately celebrate in Ontario, but perhaps is not so famous in Quebec where French origins mostly dominate the culture. In fact, instead of VD, Quebecers celebrate the Journée nationale des patriotes (the National Patriot’s Day).
Along with Matthias Weidlich, who was on sabbatical in the city, we gathered with Wil for an evening of discussion over local beer and ramen. The conversation was dominated by object-centric process mining (alongside the typical academic gossip), setting the stage for the more formal discussions that followed.
Day 1: Toronto - Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto - How Process Mining is Revolutionizing Business Analytics (21 May 2024)
The first day of the roadshow began at the Rotman School of Management, often regarded as one of Canada’s leading business schools. The event, attended by around 60 people, was sponsored by Celonis and the TD Management Data and Analytics Lab (TDMDAL) at Rotman. The program featured both academic and industry talks, starting with Wil van der Aalst’s keynote titled "Towards More Realistic Simulation, Optimization, and Machine Learning Models Using (Object-Centric) Process Mining". The keynote reflected on the intersection of Operations Research (central to business schools in North America) and process mining.
After Wil’s inspiring keynote, we saw additional presentations on various interesting topics including sampling in process mining (Matthias Weidlich, Humboldt University zu Berlin), Celonis’ new capabilities in object-centric PM (Sarah Polech, Celonis), queue mining and SiMLQ (Opher Baron and Arik Senderovich, SiMLQ), and on feature engineering for PM (Xu Chu, Celonis AI).
Day 2: Ottawa - University of Ottawa - The 2nd annual Canadian Process Mining Community gathering (22 May 2024)
On a gorgeous summer day, over 40 people met in uOttawa’s Learning Crossroads building to participate in the Celonis Canadian Process Mining Roadshow (morning), which was combined with the second Canadian Process Mining Community (CPMC) annual meeting (afternoon). CPMC brings together professors, researchers, and students from across Canada who are working on process mining-related research. Wil’s visit was a fantastic opportunity for a joint event!
The day started with a much-anticipated keynote talk from Wil on "Object-Centric Process Mining: Unraveling the Fabric of Real Processes", an approach that was further illustrated by a hands-on tutorial on Celonis by Sarah Polech. A fun panel session with interactive voting on different claims related to process mining research triggered much discussion on where the real value of such technology resides.
The CPMC presentations included contributions from Araham Jesus Martinez Lagunas (Concordia U.) on PM in the construction business, Arik Senderovich (York U.) on queue mining with SiMLQ, Soren Frederiksen (CTO, mindzie) on operational intelligence, Jacques Trottier (Health Canada) and Kavya Mallur (Transport Canada) on PM in the Government of Canada, and finally William Van Woensel (uOttawa) on the use of semantic knowledge graphs for querying logs and process models.
This excellent day, sponsored by Celonis, the School of Engineering Design and Engineering (SEDTI), and the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa, has certainly raised awareness about PM in Ottawa! We were also lucky enough to enjoy dinner outside around a beer… or two!
Day 3: Montreal - Process Mining: How a research project evolved into a product category (23 May 2024)
Concordia University’s Digital Twins Hub hosted the final day of its roadshow, attracting nearly 100 participants, including graduate and undergraduate students, faculty members from the Gina Cody School of Engineering & Computer Science, the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University, the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, and industry partners. The event spanned half a day and began with opening remarks by Professor Mourad Debbabi, Dean of the Gina Cody School of Engineering & Computer Science.
Wil delivered a world-class presentation on "Conducting Process Mining Research," introducing the concept and potential of process mining to those unfamiliar with the field. Sarah Polech, Partner Manager of Celonis’ Academic Alliance, focused on the pedagogical aspects of process mining with her presentations on "From Capstone to Entrepreneurship" and "Implementing Process Mining within the Classroom," demonstrating how the robust Celonis platform can be utilized for student projects. Claire Chen, Senior Value Engineer at Celonis, and Gregory Ning, Concordia alumnus and Senior Manager of AI & Data at EY, presented "Implementing Process Mining Within Your Business Simulation," showcasing real-world applications of process mining in industry.
The event also featured a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Mazdak Nik-Bakht, Director of the Digital Twins Hub and Associate Professor in the Department of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering at Concordia University, with insights from Wil, Sarah, Claire, and Gregory. The day concluded with a lively cocktail and networking session, sponsored by Celonis and the Dean’s Office of the Gina Cody School of Engineering & Computer Science.
- This article has been updated on October 14 2024, 12:54.
- Described by Arik Senderovich, Daniel Amyot, and Shahin Karimidorabati