A systematic literature review on the application of process mining to Industry 4.0

Abstract

The transition to Industry 4.0 means a new era in manufacturing with a new level of production automation, human-to-machine cooperation and product customization. It provides many benefits and opportunities to both enterprises and consumers and allows for principally new level of cooperation. At the same time, the complexity of business processes, large volume and the complex structure of data generated and processed by different Industry 4.0 technologies create serious challenges for Business Process Management. Process mining (PM) can tackle these challenges. PM is a relatively young discipline that is positioned between process-centric and data-centric approaches and focuses on discovering, conformance checking and enhancement of end-to-end business processes. Moreover, new types of PM deal with performance analysis, comparative analysis of several processes, making predictions and triggering improvement actions. This systematic literature review studies the applicability of PM in Industry 4.0 and the benefits that PM can provide to each of the four aspects of Industry 4.0: smart factories, smart products, new business models and new customer services. Approaches of PM proposed in the selected studies are analysed and classified according to two dimensions of the study: PM and Industry 4.0. The research gaps identified while performing the systematic literature review show possible directions for further research in the area.