Introduction
Makersite is based on Products and Processes. Every Product is either an input or an output of a Process. Together, they form the digital twin of your supply chain.
Process stores key information about how the product is made, divided into the following categories which you will find in Makersite UI:
Process Parameter | Description |
Description | Descriptive information about the process, including the source of data, authors, details about the process, and geography. |
Resources | Resources consumed by the process itself that do not directly contribute to output (such as cooling water for the machines). |
Inputs | Resources required to produce process output (such as iron used to make steel). |
Outputs | What the process produces |
Emissions | Substances emitted by the process |
Environmental Impacts | What does the process contribute to specific environmental impact. These impacts are standardized by scientists and industry experts, and mapped to processes in Makersite to determine the final impact of a product. |
Overview
Generate a Ball Pen manufacturing process:
Generate a process from the composer
Enter relevant information in the description window
Save and enter the product object
Enter Inputs and Outputs to the process
Open the “Product Model” to see and navigate the supply chain
Step 1
Navigate from the dashboard to the Compose view, then select Process from the grid.
Step 2
The data entry window opens after clicking on Process. Now go through and enter the data. Please see some example information in the screenshot below.
Additionally, Images and a My Drive folder can be added to the product group.
Note: The fields 'Product Group', 'Boundary' and 'Description' are mandatory.
Step 3
After pressing save the process page will open in Compose view.
Step 4
Go to the input tab and add Product Groups to the inputs.
The inputs are describing the materials, energies and transports.
Treatment activities such as waste handling or injection moulding are also modelled as input: this way of modelling is called activity based modelling and is the preferred way of modelling of Makersite.
Add now the material inputs as shown in the following example:
Note: The 'Preferred Route' offers the option to choose a preferred manufacturing route for a material, energy…. Specially for inputs with multiple possible manufacturing processes this is of relevance. E.g. Three technologies can produce sodium hydroxide. If nothing is chosen, the default setting of Makersite will be chosen. This is in most cases the production mix or import mix.
Complete the inputs as shown in the figure below:
Step 5
You can now open the Product Model app, the supply chain has now been fully established and is now ready for use.
