Provenance Case Study in Bicycle Manufacturing

Ensuring Authenticity with the Evident Proof Platform

Evident Proof is perhaps best described as a business that enables the creation and verification of immutable proofs, in the vein of the increasingly popular X-as-a-service model. Through the Evident Proof platform, any organisation or individual can seamlessly integrate EP’s solution into their existing operations.

When the platform receives data from a business, be it details on inventory, shipping information or serial numbers, Evident Proof encrypts this data and creates a digital signature (called seals) for that specific packet of information. This seal is then uploaded to an immutable and permanent record, which is composed of a pair of blockchains (one private and one public).

The applications of such robust proofs are numerous – businesses are better able to verify a range of data pertinent to their operations, keep meticulous timestamped records for audit purposes/regulatory compliance, and easily attest to the occurrence or provenance of a given event.

In this post, we’d like to take a deep dive into a use case that we initially outlined in our whitepaper – that is, the implementation of Evident Proof into the operations of a manufacturer. In this instance, we’ll examine how a bicycle business might make use of the platform.

The Business

Rough Terrain Cycles is a business that takes pride in its ability to provide customers with high-quality, UK-built bicycles. They decide to adopt a proof chain approach to make this claim verifiable for a number of reasons:

-It may make them eligible for government subsidies (in the aim of boosting their overseas marketing efforts, training employees and joining apprenticeship schemes)

-Allow them to provide proof of their claims that would allow them to distribute their bicycles in the EU

-Enables them to prove to customers that their products are, in fact, made in the country, and not imported

-Creates unhackable and unalterable records

-Grants ready access to proofs in the event of a dispute arising

-Ensures compliance with a number of standards – PCIDSS, ISO, Sarbanes-Oxley

Insofar as data being stored, there’s a plethora of information generated in the manufacturing and shipping processes that is worth creating proofs of in order to later verify:

-On the manufacturing front – bills of materials, work orders, locations, assembly instructions

-Inventory – physical location of various components or products within warehouses, their availability, when stock will be replenished, etc.

-Engineering documentation (technical specifications and maintenance instructions for the bicycles or peripheral products)

Once bicycles are assembled and their serial numbers are assigned, the software can automatically create an immutable record containing these. As a result, if counterfeiting is suspected, it’s trivial to perform a lookup of the serial number to determine its authenticity.

Ease of Use

Assuming that Rough Terrain Cycles, like many businesses, already use something like an SQL database for their data handling requirements, the integration of the proof chain is incredibly simple. They sign a Proof Chain Service Agreement, certifying that said data is both unique and proprietary, before interfacing with EP’s backend through REST APIs.

The platform is built in such a way that it is highly secure and scalable, relying on distributed nodes and containerisation/virtualisation in a cloud database, adhering to the latest encryption standards. To the end user/business, however, it’s as simple as pointing their data towards this platform through Evident Proof’s intuitive web-based portal.

Unprecedented Transparency

The example of the use of blockchain technology for the purposes of creating seals in the manufacturing of bicycles is just one of hundreds of applications – the Evident Proof platform can be used not only in attesting to the provenance of specific products, but in supply chains, insurance and legal chain-of-custody areas.

For more information on the technical specifications of the platform, take a look at Evident Proof’s technical paper.

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