Linguistic summaries of process data

In this paper we investigate a new application area for protoform-based linguistic summaries, namely process data. We are proposing four protoforms that are designed to capture process specific information. Linguistic summaries can capture information on the tasks or sequences of tasks that are frequently executed as well as properties of these tasks or sequences, such as their throughput and service time. Such information is of specific interest in the context of process analysis and diagnosis. Moreover linguistic summaries are capable of combining different features and characteristics of tasks, sequences of tasks and even whole processes. Through a case study with a data from practice, the paper shows that the knowledge derived from these linguistic summaries is useful for identifying problems in processes and establishing best practices.