Manufacturing & Supply Chain

BSI, the business improvement and standards company, has been successfully developing and demonstrating future digital solutions with Trace Labs and other trusted partners. This work forms part of Trusted Bytes Food Industry’s Innovate UK project designed to help digitize the UK’s fresh produce supply chains.

The two-year Trusted Bytes concept co-led by Melon&Co Ltd and University of Lincoln, began in April 2021. Its focus is on how the use of digital technology can facilitate the flow of goods across international borders and increase efficiency for the UK food sector. This will help to create proof of food provenance by digitizing critical border transfer processes, while also providing seamless real-time digital connectivity to supply chain operators. It will also enable a trusted data exchange that connects the supply chain with central government and other critical partners enhancing cross border facilitation, compliance and security.

BSI and Trace Labs have successfully co-developed several unique solutions as part of the Trusted Bytes project in the first year of operation. Firstly, BSI contributed a standards model for the Trusted Bytes Data Trust framework combining traditional management system standards with proprietary solutions and digital know how of Trusted Bytes partners. This has formed a foundation of the target data trust and digital convening necessary for the Trusted Bytes partners to collaborate.

The BSI framework also combines benefits of traditional standards with emerging supply chain standards. Such approaches demonstrate how standards can be leveraged to support future digital convening solutions and technologies that promote data sharing between supply-chain industry stakeholders, government agencies, and regulators.

BSI and Trace Labs have also developed an advanced Trusted Trader demonstrator that showcases future Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) compliance assurance and risk assessment – leveraging the OriginTrail Decentralized Knowledge Graph (DKG) as the basis for data and digital standards interoperability. For example, U.K. customs would be able to assess the risk level associated with incoming shipments in real-time from the departure right up until the arrival on U.K. soil. This enables customs processes to be focused and more resource and time efficient.

The demonstrator combines traditional supply chain audit data with intelligence data sourced from BSI’s integrated technology solution, BSI SCREEN Connect, and real time shipment information, supported by SecureSystem and Bluering/Octosense (food logistics technology developed by Contained Technologies Ltd) in the demonstrator. Both solutions enable IoT-based in transit visibility to provide independent and real time integrity and security data on containerized cargo. The demonstrator aligns with UK Government roles around future trade.

Dan Purtell, Group Innovation Director at BSI, commented: “BSI is delighted with our first year of progress on Trusted Bytes, which aims to drive productivity and transparency within UK and international supply chains. Digital transformation is changing the way organizations and governments operate and we’re confident that by bringing together our expertise in convening, supply chain security and trade compliance with the latest technology, we can help improve transparency, increase trust and enhance long-term sustainability.”