Mine Sustainability Modeling Group (MSMG) 'SimaPro' CSV Optimizer

A 'Shiny' application for converting 'Excel'-based Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data into 'SimaPro' CSV (Comma-Separated Values) format for use in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modeling. Developed by the Mine Sustainability Modeling Group (MSMG) at Missouri University of Science and Technology under NSF (National Science Foundation) funding (Award No. 2219086). See Pizzol (2022) < https://github.com/massimopizzol/Simapro-CSV-converter> for the original 'Python' implementation that inspired this tool.

MSMGOptimizer

Overview

MSMGOptimizer is an R package that transforms raw Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data from Excel into a fully compatible CSV format for seamless import into SimaPro — one of the world’s leading Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) software platforms.

Developed as part of the NSF-funded project:

ECO-CBET: GOALI: CAS-Climate: Expediting Decarbonization of the Cement Industry through Integration of CO2 Capture and Conversion (NSF Project No. 2219086)

Installation

Option 1 — Install from CRAN (recommended)

install.packages("MSMGOptimizer")

Option 2 — Install from GitHub (development version)

# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("Duah-Philip/MSMGOptimizer")

Option 3 — Run directly without installing

shiny::runGitHub(
  repo     = "MSMGOptimizer",
  username = "Duah-Philip",
  ref      = "master",
  subdir   = "inst/shiny"
)

Usage

library(MSMGOptimizer)

# Launch the Shiny application
ShinyMSMGOptimizer()

Features

• 📂 Upload .xlsx or .xls Excel LCI files
• ⚙ Automatically converts all worksheets to SimaPro CSV format
• 📦 Downloads all converted files as a single ZIP archive
• 👁 Live sheet preview before conversion
• 🔄 Supports all SimaPro exchange types:
  • Materials/Fuels, Resources, Emissions to Air/Water/Soil
  • Final Waste Flows, Social Issues, Economic Issues
  • Waste to Treatment

Excel File Format

Your Excel file must follow this structure:

Exchange type codes for Column A:

Acknowledgments

Inspired by the original Python-based SimaPro CSV converter developed by Professor Massimo Pizzol.

Citation

If you use MSMGOptimizer in your research, please cite:

Duah, P. & Awuah-Offei, K. (2025). MSMGOptimizer: MSMG SimaPro CSV Optimizer.
R package version 0.1.0.
https://github.com/Duah-Philip/MSMGOptimizer

Contact

Philip Duah
Missouri University of Science & Technology
📧 [email protected]