Amazon Technologies Inc. is endeavoring to build supply chain trust with “verifiable tracking of an item through a supply chain using a distributed electronic ledger,” FreightWaves reported. The company recorded in its the United States patent application that it can be challenging, if not impracticable, to determine the trustworthiness of a party as activities move online and internationally. It wrote, “Trust is earned. Once Trust is lost, it can often be difficult to regain.”

At the time that a product is introduced into a product system, the filing notes, its data could be involved in “the creation element” at the start of a ledger for that object. Additionally, the filing stated a “certification authority” could be added to attest that the products obtained match up to the products in the catalog, based on one or various certification rules.

In the event that a certification rule is reached, a record could be made to show the transfer of the product from a provider to the catalog system. The company stated the certification data could be “dynamically” displayed with the product description data, as in the case of a response to catalog system inquiries.

In separate news, IBM and Chainyard, the blockchain consultancy, revealed a supply chain management blockchain network named Trust Your Supplier, which intends to support supplier validation, life cycle data management, and onboarding.

Managing suppliers typically include manual processes, which makes it challenging to verify identities and monitor documents, such as tax certifications. Trust Your Supplier is intended to save time and reduce the prospect of errors and deception by taking a decentralized approach and creating a blockchain-based audit trail. Gartner Inc., for its part, stated the blockchain is anticipated to help international movement and monitoring of $2 trillion of products and services yearly.