Project overview
Project Butterfly is a direct response to the urgent need to decarbonise the manufacturing industry.
It focuses on driving forward the innovation of digital technologies at the heart of manufacturing processes – with an aim to reduce environmental impact and accelerate the industry's journey to net zero.
Funded by Innovate UK under the Made Smarter innovation challenge, the wider project consortium includes the the University of Sheffield AMRC, BAE Systems, Leonardo, Nissan, Accenture, Intellium, GKN Aerospace, Moy Park (part of Pilgrim's Europe) and University of Lincoln, UK.
The challenge
It focuses on driving forward the innovation of digital technologies at the heart of manufacturing processes – with an aim to reduce environmental impact and accelerate the industry’s journey to net zero.
What we're doing
The AMRC has developed two key tools, the process sustainability calculator and decarbonisation guidance, that can help manufacturing engineers to evaluate and prioritise processes for sustainability improvement in any sector.
- The process sustainability calculator enables comparison of up to five processes with the associated resources to identify areas for improving process CO2 equivalent emissions and prioritise decarbonisation efforts, based on existing sources of data.
- The process decarbonisation guidance explains how to use the calculator with ease, and provides guidance on how to capture and leverage data sources to increase resource and energy efficiency.
The AMRC's digital tools can help manufacturers to -
- Identify high-carbon intensity processes in the organisation
- Close the gap between carbon accounting and life cycle analysis
- Spot quick wins for industrial decarbonisation by accounting for the changeability factor
- Choose which process metrics are a priority, enabling flexibility
- Encourage discussions about making processes more efficient in the short and long-run.
