Clarify: a blockchain-based traceability platform
Developing a more traceable and sustainable future.
Sending and receiving products are everyday processes that have been done by almost everyone, whether you be an average consumer or part of large corporations in the trade industry.
A lot of the time, a product doesn’t go directly to its final destination in one trip but makes multiple stops at different points before reaching its destination. This is made more complicated when you take into account that the parts of a product can come from different places as well.
Say you ordered something online and are waiting for it to arrive at your house in a couple of days. Have you ever wondered what kind of trip your product, or even the parts of your product, took before finally reaching your doorsteps? It could’ve been made in Narnia then inspected by the fire nation before being quantum teleported to your house for all we know.
Okay, maybe not that amazing of a trip, but the general idea is that a product usually goes through multiple destinations before finally reaching the intended destination, especially when the product is crossing country borders.
This is due to the many complex procedures and approvals everything has to go through to pass from one place to another due to security, policies, regulations, etc.
To the average consumer, the product’s course of travel may not really matter as long as the product arrives in one piece. However, that information can be very important to companies with strict policies as it allows one to know about the product’s origin and if the policies have been met or not.
Traceability
Traceability is defined as:
“the quality of having an origin or course of development that may be found or followed”
It’s simply the ability to track, trace and identify something from the beginning to the end. In our case, it would be tracking a product’s course of travel all the way back from its origins.
But why is traceability important? And who would benefit from it?
The average consumer may only care about the finished product being in one piece and not being faulty. However, large corporations may have goals for their products that could only be achieved through strict regulations and policies.
This would make corporations have their suppliers meet certain demands before purchasing products from said suppliers. Compliance and transparency are key for smooth negotiations and meeting socio-political (e.g. Sustainability Development Goals (SDG)) and consumer expectations.
Compliance
As mentioned before, being able to track a product’s course of travel allows one to know about the product’s origin, journey and authenticity. This can clear any regulatory doubts one might have about a product by proving that the product is compliant with relevant regulations, industry standards, and other certifications as demanded of their buyers.
Transparency
Being able to openly show everything enhances trust from others. If you’re transparent and are able to show and prove the origins and regulations of your products, buyers have no reason to doubt you and your products, especially if the product meets the buyer’s regulatory demands. This will benefit your brand greatly and give you a competitive edge.
So now you should understand why traceability is important, but how are you supposed to show it? Or even utilize it?
You can always do it the hard way and track down every distributor, warehouses, factories, etc..
You could also go through the hassle of developing sources from scratch where you provide relevant proof of your product’s authenticity, regulations, etc.
OR… You can plan to utilise Perlin’s latest development, where we do all of that for you to make traceability much easier!
Introducing…
*Currently, Clarify is still in the testing and development stage but here’s a general idea of what it would be like and how it would work.
What is it?
Clarify is a blockchain-based traceability platform that allows for easy and increased transparency within supply chains and for consumers about their products.
It is being developed with a vision towards a more sustainable trade ecosystem where suppliers are more likely to receive preferential market treatment for following sustainable practices, which is a great incentive towards a sustainable future.
The platform incorporates all of the most vital features that a traceability platform must offer, which includes:
- Easy-to-use & Intuitive User Interface: Designed for anyone to use regardless of technical background, allowing your staff to easily and quickly upload key data.
- Painless Integration: Easily and seamlessly integrated into existing value chain systems without time-consuming or costly onboarding costs
- Flexible Customisation: Flexible and easily tailored to enterprises of every type, size, and complexity.
- Immutability of Your Uploaded Data: Once on-chain, your data will be permanent and unalterable to build trust with customers and supports your branding for quality and excellence.
Compliance and Transparency in Clarify
As mentioned previously, being able to track a product’s course of travel allows one to know about the product’s origin and if the said product complies with regulations, industry standards, and has the necessary certifications.
There are many companies that have sustainability goals, such as global giants Zara and H&M. These companies can use Clarify to verify a product from suppliers and see if it satisfies their sustainability policies towards their sustainability goals.
With major brands as big buyers with big sustainability agendas, a knock-on effect is created all the way back up to the top of the supply chain. Suppliers, who wants to have such companies as buyers, would have to make sure they follow sustainability policies (because their buyers and their buyer’s buyer will need to meet the sustainability policies downstream) as buyers could assess the journey and relevant sustainability details about the suppliers through the verified information provided by the clarify servers.
As far as transparency goes, companies are very sensitive about the information they disclose and to whom as they may not want unwanted leaks that could put them at a disadvantage. Because of this, there isn’t much information shared between suppliers and buyers as they usually just communicate through emails.
To tackle such trust issues, Clarify provides a decentralised platform utilising blockchain technology to ensure secure storage of data that does not depend on any one entity to maintain.
How does it work?
A simple way to look at it is:
- Data from multiple sources (multi-factor authentication) are collected about supply chain actors
- Clarify servers verify the data
- If the data is approved, it is stored into the blockchain where it is immutable.
- The data can then be viewed by anyone that has permission to access it.
The stored data of the supplier can be accessed by buyers (who will have to have the permission of said suppliers through the use of smart contracts) to confirm if the supplier’s goods and products meet the buyer’s sustainability policies.
By participating in Clarify, you can show that your goods and products are sustainable. This would incentivise companies with sustainable goals to choose your products over others, giving you a competitive edge.
Multi-factor authentication
They say two heads are better than one, but why not go further and have a lot more than two?
Our platform plans to utilise data oracles and other data collection methods for auditing purposes as we believe the time is now for companies to be audited and kept accountable for SDGs.
Data oracles would consist of monitoring technologies, such as sensors and satellites, to validate claims and traceability data posted by users.
Some factors, for example, include:
- Automatic Production Data: Automatic data collection from supply chain actors into Perlin’s ledger
- User-generated content (for low tech areas): Same as Automatic Production Data except the data is provided manually by the users.
- Drone and Camera feed: Monitoring of environment, whether it be farms or insides of factories.
- Nano Satellites. (for outdoors): Utilising satellites to verify outdoor-related claims, such as harvesting.
- Automatic Nano Sensors: Utilisation of monitoring technologies, such as soil moisture sensors and weighbridges, to collect specific environmental information.
Case Study: Asia Pacific Rayon
To get a better idea of what Clarify will be like, we partnered with Asia Pacific Rayon bring you the piloting application of our platform.
Asia Pacific Rayon is the world’s largest producer of Rayon and is aiming to show 100% traceability from sustainable sources.
Together with them, we have built an application of Clarify called Follow Our Fibre. This allows customers to view each viscose bale and see all the plants that contributed to it. Soon we will be implementing data oracles to verify their claims internally and externally.
Using the Follow Our Fibre app, you’re able to see exactly where the viscose rayon has been, and verify its sustainable sourcing.
Experience the ease of traceability through Clarify’s piloting application:
Follow our Fibre: https://app.followourfibre.com/
The Future is Now
This is only the first step towards a more traceable and sustainable future as Clarify is a nascent application of blockchain. There is a lot of development potential and we at Perlin are going to push the boundaries of blockchain development beyond the limits all the while upholding our vision towards a sustainable future!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us and clarify any doubts.
Maikro~
