Processes are the main production steps in your facility (e.g., heating, molding, or assembly) that consume resources and generate emissions. Adding processes in Helix allows you to assign the right share of utilities and emissions to each step, allowing you to see where impacts occur and how they relate to your products. This article covers the following questions:
Why are processes important in Helix?
What information do I need to define processes?
How do I add and manage processes in Helix?
How do I allocate usages and emissions to processes?
What allocation methods can I use?
Looking for more context? Check out these related articles:
How to allocate processes to products in Helix?
Why do processes matter to your model?
Processes represent the production steps in your facility (e.g., heating, injection molding, or packaging) that consume the utilities and fuels you added on the Usages & Emissions page. More about the Usages and Emissions page in this article.
By modeling processes in Helix, you:
Make it possible to allocate utilities and emissions to the correct steps in your factory.
Gain insight into process 'hotspots' that drive your footprint.
Prepare your model for allocating process impacts to your products later.
What data do you need to model processes?
A list of relevant processes at your facility
An understanding of how utilities and emissions are divided between those processes
How to add processes in Helix?
Step 1: Navigate to the Processes page:
Go to: Input → 2.Process → 2. Processes
Step 2: Add a new process:
Enter a process name.
(Optional) Add a description to clarify what happens in this process.
Click ‘Add process’.
The process will now appear in the overview.
Pro tip - Naming processes: Define your processes in a way that makes it possible to allocate utilities later. For example, if you only know energy data at a department level, define your processes accordingly.
Figure 1: Processes overview in Helix.
How to manage processes?
To edit a process, click the pencil icon.
To remove a process, click the X icon.
How to complete the process x footprint page in Helix?
Once your processes are defined, you can allocate the usages and emissions from your company level to them.
Step 1. Navigate to the Footprint × Process page
Go to: Input → 2.Process → 3. Footprint × Process
Step 2. View footprint items
The footprint items you added in the Usages & Emissions tab are shown in the rows. These include utilities (e.g., electricity, gas), waste, and direct emissions.
Step 3. Choose a distribution method
You can allocate footprint items to processes in three ways (see Figure 2):
Absolute amounts (e.g., kWh of electricity, m³ of water)
Percentages (e.g., 40% of natural gas to molding, 60% to heating)
Custom settings
Click on the bar under ‘Total to distribute’ to select your preferred method.
Figure 2: Distribution methods in Helix
Step 4. Enter allocations directly
Enter the absolute amount or percentage for each process in the process columns
Check the Difference column at the end of the row:
✅ Check icon = the allocation matches your total usages and emissions input.
⚠️ Warning triangle = the allocation does not match (adjust your entries)
Example 1: Electricity allocation
Example 1: Electricity allocation
Imagine your site uses 1,000 kWh of electricity (entered in Usages and Emissions):
Molding machines use 700 kWh
Packaging lines use 300 kWh
You allocate based on percentages:
70% of electricity to 'Molding'.
30% to 'Packaging'.
The 'Difference' column show a check mark ✅ which means that your allocation is complete and correct.
Figure 3: Overview of 'Footprint x Process' page in Helix.
(Optional) Importing Footprint x Process
To import ‘Footprint x Process’ data, follow these steps:
Go to the Input → 2.Process → 3.Footprint x Process page.
On the ‘Footprint x Process’ page, set the distribution method in the table to the desired method for each footprint item.
Export the import template (Figure 3) from the ‘Footprint x Process’ page by clicking ‘Export’.
Leave columns A and B unchanged, so the footprint items can be recognized correctly upon import.
Fill out the distribution of the footprint items in the 'Process' columns (starting in H). Make sure to use the selected distribution method (shown in column D), or adjust it if necessary. As mentioned above, this is easiest to do in Helix before downloading the import template.
Import your completed file back into Helix.
Check your changes before saving.
Figure 3: Excel import template of ‘Footprint x Process’ page.
For more context on how to import (footprint x process) data, you can read this article.
Next Steps
Once your processes and their allocations are set up, your model is ready to connect process impacts to specific products.
The next step is to allocate processes to products, so you can see the impact of each production step on your final products. Read more here: How to allocate processes to products.
This article was written in close collaboration with Fabiënne de Bever:
