University of Tartu researcher was awarded ERC Grant to turn frontier science into practical solutions

Professor Marlon Dumas from the University of Tartu Institute of Computer Science received the European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept Grant, which is designed to help researchers bridge the gap between the results of their pioneering research and the early phases of its commercialisation or societal application.

In his new project “AI-Assisted Optimization of Business Processes”, Dumas and his team will develop automated methods to analyse performance issues in business processes, and to discover and evaluate change options to address these issues. These methods will help businesses to increase service efficiency and enhance customer experience. Public sector organisations, likewise, can use such methods to streamline administrative processes and improve service delivery to citizens.

The outcome of Dumas’ work will be the tool called Optimos, which allows business users to ask questions about the performance of the process, such as “Which parts of a process should we simplify or automate to ensure we minimise errors and deliver an optimal customer experience?”.

Optimos runs algorithms for automated performance analysis, on top of data extracted from enterprise information systems. Based on the outputs of these algorithms, Optimos will provide answers, supported by visualisations, highlighting sources of inefficiencies and defects, as well as possible changes to the process to address these issues. Following this analysis, a business user may request Optimos to explore a space of change options to identify sets of optimal changes to tackle the performance issues, for example, by adjusting batching or prioritisation policies, resource schedules, decision rules, etc.

The Optimos tool will leverage advanced optimisation algorithms developed by Dumas and his team in the project “The Process Improvement Explorer (PIX)” funded by an ERC Advanced Grant.

The tool will be tested in three pilot projects, which will validate the potential for industrial use of the developed methods. In parallel, the university researchers will engage with a business development consultancy to prepare a market analysis and business plan to determine viable pathways to commercial exploitation.