Flow to Insight: Unveiling the Stories Hidden in Sankey Charts

Sankey charts are among the most intriguing visual tools available for illustrating energy and material streams. They are used in a variety of industries, from logistics to environmental engineering, to reveal complex flows and transformations. Flow to Insight: Unveiling the Stories Hidden in Sankey Charts explores the creation and applications of these unique diagrams, showing how they transform information into insights.

What is a Sankey Chart?

A Sankey chart is a type of flow diagram in which arrows depict the magnitude of flows between processes or systems. These charts are named after British engineer John Sankey, who first utilized them in 1898 to visualize fuel usage in factories.

Sankey diagrams are especially well-suited to illustrate the energy and material flows in a process over time, their advantages lying in their efficiency at showing where energy or material is being lost. Their design ensures that the thickness of the arrows represents the magnitude of flow, with relatively more substantial flows being depicted by wider arrows, which allows at a glance to spot areas of significant energy or material conversion or loss.

The Creation of Sankey Charts

Creating a Sankey chart requires a process that includes data collection, mapping, visualization, and often customization. Here is a breakdown of how one goes about creating a Sankey diagram:

1. Data Collection: The creation of a Sankey chart begins with collecting data about the process under scrutiny. This could include the flow rates of materials, energy, or people within a system.

2. Identification of Nodes and Links: Next, the data is processed to identify the points where flows begin and end – these are known as nodes. Sankey charts consist of a series of nodes connected by links that represent flows between them.

3. Energy and Material Flow Allocation: The flows are allocated between nodes and links, quantifying the energy or material moving through the system.

4. Thickening Arrows: Once the flows have been identified, the thickness of the arrows on the chart is adjusted to visually represent their magnitude. The wider the arrow, the greater the flow.

5. Formatting: The look of the Sankey chart can include different formatting features such as different colors representing different types of energy or material, labels, and nodes.

6. Analysis: After the Sankey chart has been created, it can be analyzed for insights. This can be manual, by comparing the widths of arrows or the angles they form, or it can be automated using specialized software.

Applications of Sankey Charts

Sankey diagrams have a wide array of applications across various fields:

Energy Sector

In the energy industry, Sankey charts are employed to make assessments of systems like boilers, gas pipelines, and power plants. They help to identify inefficiencies, such as excess energy being lost as heat in industrial plants.

Environmental Engineering

Environmental engineers use Sankey charts to evaluate the environmental impact of processes, pinpointing locations where emissions increase and highlighting opportunities for waste reduction and eco-friendly design improvements.

Logistics and Supply Chains

Within logistics, Sankey charts can provide a clear view of the flow of goods through a supply chain, visualizing how certain points might be bottlenecks or points of excessive energy use, thus aiding in the optimization of routes and operations.

Chemical Industry

The chemical industry utilizes Sankey charts to optimize manufacturing processes, track the movement of chemicals and reactants, and monitor the production of by-products and waste streams.

Urban and Industrial Planning

Urban planners use Sankey diagrams to understand and model the flow of people, goods, and services in cities, which can be helpful in planning for sustainable and efficient transportation systems.

Unveiling Stories with Sankey Charts

Despite their technical nature, Sankey diagrams serve to tell stories within an enterprise. They help stakeholders grasp complex flows and transformations at a glance, revealing not just raw data but actionable insights. Below is what these stories often convey:

Identifying Hotspots

Sankey charts can reveal “hotspots” in processes, areas where vast amounts of energy or material are being used, which could indicate potential improvement opportunities.

Benchmarking

By comparing Sankey charts of different processes, sectors, or time periods, one can uncover benchmarks and standards for efficiency and resource use.

Process Optimization

Through the visualization of energy and material flows, one can identify processes that are not producing adequate returns on their energy and material inputs, suggesting improvements.

Cost Reduction

Many industries rely on Sankey charts for identifying opportunities for cost reduction by streamlining processes and reducing energy and material waste.

Sankey charts are powerful tools not just for data representation, but also for fostering discussions and inspiring innovation. They are the intersection of quantitative data and conceptual understanding, making them indispensable when one’s goal is to understand and improve the processes we interact with daily.

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