Blockchain enabled certificates of conformity
A blockchain-based system for a supply-chain platform that enables to register batches of products, their certificates of conformity, and validate them. The system has agile instruments of access rights management, guarantees transparency and tamper-proof work.
Overview
Duration
3 months, 1015 hours
Methodology
Agile (Scrum)
Technologies
- Blockchain: J.P.Morgan’s Quorum, Smart contracts in Solidity
- Infrastructure: AWS Auto Scaling group, AWS Classic Load Balancer, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodeBuild, Amazon Aurora, Amazon ECS
- Backend: Java 8, Spring Boot, Jooq, Kafka
- Web: Angular 5, TypeScript, RxJS, Angular Material, SCSS
Project Team
- 1 blockchain developer
- 1 blockchain developer 1 backend developer 1 BA/PM, 1 designer 1 QA
- 1 BA/PM, 1 designer
- 1 QA
Category
Blockchain, UI/UX Design, Web
what to do
Smartym Pro was asked to create a blockchain system as a part of the Sartorius supply chain platform. Also, we had a request to make research on what blockchain enterprise solution to use for a better adaption of the customer’s needs: Hyperledger or J.P. Morgan’s Quorum. As a result of our thorough research, we chose Quorum as the best solution for this particular case. At the moment each party of the supply chain system has its own node, storing the copy of existing ledger and being able to read it and add new records. Users are able to use the blockchain via the web interface which is connected to their node.
business tasks
Provide an informational source on the provenance and ownership history of all the resources used in the supply chain process;
Develop a solution using blockchain distributed ledger that will be highly robust and resilient to attempts in making record changes;
Provide the client with an opportunity to manage the supply chain participants’ access rights;
Create an easy-to-use system that will not require any special computer skills or a lot of time to use it.
technical tasks
Provide an informational source on the provenance and ownership history of all the resources used in the supply chain process;
Develop a solution using blockchain distributed ledger that will be highly robust and resilient to attempts in making record changes;
Provide the client with an opportunity to manage the supply chain participants’ access rights;
Create an easy-to-use system that will not require any special computer skills or a lot of time to use it.
our decision
We offered the client to develop a solution based on J.P. Morgan’s Quorum since this platform is the enterprise version of Ethereum blockchain. In this case, the system would have the proven reliability of Ethereum with flexible privacy and transparency settings as well as high transactional speed.
We created a solution where the blockchain stores 3 types of supply chain objects linked with each other:
- 01 Batches
(the properties are: vendor, buyer, production date, batch No.)
- 02 Certificates
(the properties are: product name, product No., certificate No., attached file, key)
- 03 Certificates validation
(the properties are: certification No., user, date, key, value)
we faced with
- Independent nodes:
Each counterparty in the supply chain was expected to have their own independent node. Node independence means that the nodes needed to have been set up by technical specialists for every member of the supply chain. Different levels of supplier’ expertise was one of the obstacles to be overcome.
- Access roles:
Different tiers of the supply chain and their employees implied setting up various access roles. Elaboration of all the possible use cases in close cooperation with the client enabled us to create a flexible system of rights’ management for both the employees and the executives of the organizations.
- Hyperledger vs Quorum
Before the development start, we needed to decide on the most suitable corporate blockchain technology. Upon carrying out a comparative analysis of Hyperledger Fabric and Quorum we decided to go for Quorum which suited the particular client’s case the most. We chose the following comparison criteria: hosting requirements, costs, ease of setup, transactional speed, privacy and fault tolerance.
System's features
- Batch records’ creation
- Certification attachment
- Records validation
- Certificate records search
- Search for certificate chains
- Full linked information on batches, certificates, and their validations
Blockchain enabled certificates of conformity
We’ve developed a blockchain solution that meets all the requirements of the client and his business objectives. Before the introduction of the system, the client needed to contact each Tier of his supply chain and request the certificates to be sent by email. Now it takes only a few seconds to get the information about all the certificates for materials and semi-finished products used for any batch of finished goods and the client can be sure that this information is correct. The system is fast, reliable and scalable and its functionality can be enhanced if needed in the future.