TrustedFramework for Quality Hallmark sharing

The Trusted Framework (TF) enables quality control to cross the boundaries of the factory, extending its reach to the entire supply chain. The main pillar of this vision is trust: sharing quality related information across different organizations, with confidence in its trustworthiness - i.e., provenance and integrity - and without the need to centralize the process into the hands of one single actor. To meet these requirements, the TF puts up two technologies: blockchain / smart contracts and the Quality Hallmark (QH), which is an interoperable data format that captures quality indicators about a given process, product / part, or dataset. QH documents are received from verified parties, processed on the blockchain by a smart contract (so that common rules can be enforced regardless of the document’s origin), timestamped and stored as immutable objects, thus becoming permanent and unretractable statements that are shared within the business network.

The TF is more than “yet another private blockchain network”: it’s a complete end-to-end solution that includes all the key elements of an infrastructure for the secure sharing of data in non-hierarchical business ecosystems, where all parties are equal.

The main features of the TF are:

• Extensible format for QH documents: a standard header plus a customizable body.

• Off-chain storage of QH documents, to work around blockchain’s scalability limitations.

• Blockchain-based system of record for QH entries, as a guarantee of authenticity and non-repudiation.

• Blockchain-based identity management, with support for delegation of authority.

• Advanced search capabilities on the QH repository.

• Extensible user interface for data monitoring and navigation (dashboards).