The U.K.’s national standards body, British Standards Institution (BSI), operates with blockchain firm TraceLabs to confirm the authenticity of personal credentials and company and product certifications. “This strategic partnership aims to provide our clients with the ability to demonstrate the authenticity of their compliance through the digital records of the assessments and certifications they have achieved from BSI,” said Howard Kerr, Chief Executive of BSI in a statement.

BSI has started a blockchain solution to allow U.S. importers to see the certifications and credentials of factories. Named Trusted Factory Blockchain Program, the solution is combined with the SCAN (Supplier Compliance Audit Network).

SCAN is a trade association established by major importers in the U.S. and Canada and is operating on standardizing the format and content of supply chain security audits. Rather than every importer who is required to perform an overseas factory inspection, the aim is to facilitate the sharing of this audit data, decreasing related costs.

The association recently has 18,000 factories in its database, including GAP, Levi’s, Walmart, Home Depot, Target, and JC Penney, among others. “Membership in SCAN has delivered both an effective platform as well as cost savings through the use of shared audits. Adding a secured blockchain element over the top of the SCAN audit only increases the security and integrity of these audits!” said Ken McElroy, Manager for Global Trade Risk at Home Depot in a statement.

Meantime, TraceLabs is the core developer of the ODN (OriginTrail Decentralized Network), the supply chain traceability, and data sharing solution based on public Ethereum. Based in Hong Kong with a Slovenian team, Origin Trail raised $22.5 million in a 2018 ICO. BSI and TraceLabs utilized ODN to produce the SCAN Trusted Factory Blockchain Program, allowing importers to see the audit and certification details of a factory securely.

The company states it utilizes W3C Verifiable Credentials to assure interoperability with other frameworks like Self-Sovereign Identity. BSI and TraceLabs associated in early 2019, and currently issued a whitepaper on the three use cases they developed. Aside from the solution mentioned above, the duo is utilizing blockchain for proof of standards ownership, and training certificate proof of credentials. 

While not explicitly concentrated on audits, two blockchain-based supplier management platforms include Trust Your Supplier developed by Chainyard in association with IBM, and True Supplier Marketplace from Accenture.