Towards Process Mining Use Case Map Models with PM4Py-UCM

2026-06-02

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of effectively integrating process mining results into early-stage requirements engineering by proposing an automated modeling approach tailored to Use Case Maps (UCMs) within the ITU-T URN standard. By extending the PM4Py library, the authors develop the first process mining pipeline that treats UCMs as first-class outputs, supporting configurable actor mapping and nested hierarchical decomposition. The method enables high-fidelity bidirectional interoperability with the jUCMNav tool. Empirical evaluation on both public and synthetic event logs demonstrates its capability to accurately represent behavioral models across multiple abstraction levels, thereby advancing process mining as a practical enabler for model-driven requirements engineering.

Abstract

Given the increasing amount of data available in organizational systems, there is an opportunity for early requirements engineering (RE) activities to be better based on evidence than ever before. Process mining (PM) has been used for over two decades to discover and analyze as-is process models from event logs extracted from such data, with outputs often in the form of Petri Nets, directly-follows graphs, or BPMN models. This paper aims to make Use Case Map (UCM) models, from ITU-T's User Requirements Notation (URN), a first-class output of process discovery, so that mined behavior can be used in URN-based modeling, analysis, and management activities. This paper contributes and illustrates PM4Py-UCM, an open-source extension to the existing PM4Py Python library. This new tool contributes 1) a UCM discovery pipeline, 2) hierarchical decomposition strategies producing nested UCM models, 3) configurable performer mappings for UCM and BPMN visualizations, and 4) an exporter to a URN tool (jUCMNav) that preserves the mined model under round-trip. Using public and synthetic event logs, the paper showcases how the same behavior is rendered under different performer abstractions and decomposition strategies, and discusses how PM can become a practical instrument for model-driven RE.

Problem

• Process Mining
• Use Case Map
• Requirements Engineering
• URN
• Model Discovery

Innovation

• Process Mining
• Use Case Maps
• Requirements Engineering
• PM4Py
• Hierarchical Decomposition