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Online Material Flow Analysis Tool (OMAT)

The Online Material Flow Analysis Tool (OMAT) is a free, open source tool that can be used to undertake a Material Flow Analysis (MFA). More specifically, the goals of OMAT are:

OMAT is similar to STAN in that it is free software and it is available for flow analysis. However, OMAT is based on an online platform which means that it is not necessary to install any program on the computer, and it can be used on any type of operating system. OMAT is furthermore focused on EW-MFA rather than Substance Flow Analysis.

Improved version launched!

In September 2014 we launched OMAT in its beta version to the public. We have been improving it ever since, and in February 2018 we have applied various upgrades to OMAT in order to improve navigation and data management. OMAT has been used by various groups at universities and the system is also used by individual researchers to manage their MFA. We invite you to start using it for your own MFA and to let us know if you have any questions or comments.

We invite programmers to join the development of this free service, and we invite researchers to either start a project now or get in touch with specific requests so that we can tailor the program to the need of people in the industry and get feedback from those who help us test the software.

Start your project View the documentation

Instruction videos

As part of our MOOC, we have developed several instruction videos for OMAT. Please find them below:

Introduction to OMAT
Data quality indocators and scaling
Contacts and sources
OMAT output

Usage in a classroom setting

In 2017, professor Gara Villalba and Paul Hoekman published an article in the Journal of Industrial Ecology on how OMAT can be used in a classroom setting, based on a project at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. From the abstract:

The main objective of this article is to introduce an open‐source, online software tool called OMAT as a teaching tool for performing economy wide‐material flow analysis (EW‐MFA) at urban or regional level in industrial ecology curricula. To that intent, we present a classroom and project activity that was developed for a masters‐level industrial ecology course offered by the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Insights are provided with regards to the outcome of the classroom exercise as well as lessons learned from both an academic and a software development point of view.

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Development roadmap

Screenshots