Unova guides

At Unova we believe in combining different technologies with the end goal of creating a supply chain traceability platform. In a similar fashion to how ERP systems greatly improved operations of individual companies our Unova platform now will improve the supply chain as a whole. We believe traceability is a means to which many problems can be solved, and overall operations can be improved.

An ERP system covering the chain

History

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. Since the 90’s companies have relied on it to streamline processes, and improve data visibility around finance, project management, and manufacturing. However, these ERP systems were designed to be used inside a company, and data would only be shared with the people inside this company. Thus, the data collected by an ERP system was sent to a centralized database. Later, these databases were hosted by cloud computers as opposed to on-premise servers. Companies would never share access to this database and rightly so. Even if access would be given, any of the parties could manipulate or alter the data at any given point making the data not reliable. Companies could consider hosting a separate database where certain data would be shared but again the problem of who could alter the data own the data or manipulate remained a key concern.

Along came blockchain technology which made it possible to have a decentralized system where the data would be encrypted, and the hashes validated and distributed to all the nodes in the system. Suddenly manipulating data was no longer an issue and blockchain technology greatly improved throughout the years for specific use cases. The technology now was ready to become the backbone of an ERP system that would cover the whole supply chain. This is when Unova was created. Each company would register the specific data points and fields necessary to be able to trace products from their origin (usually the farm) to the end consumer.

Along came Unova

The question now became, what problems could be solved by having this extra layer covering multiple steps? And what additional software would need to be created to onboard these companies in a systematic yet flexible manner? Some problems are immediately clear. For example, recalls that happen frequently and lead to an enormous waste due to a lack of traceability. Additionally, the reputational damage after a big recall can cost a company even more than the recall itself. The problem of recalls taking a lot of time to complete and being very wasteful because of not knowing exactly which product is contaminated is one of the things we focus on at Unova. In addition to having recalls being taken care of in an efficient manner there is the use of this data for many other purposes (more on this later).

How to reach the above-mentioned benefits?

Register a facility

During the signup flow you will receive your own private and public keys for the Blockchain system. These are the main keys and will be linked to the account owner admin panel with billing and other admin functions. These main keys and this account owner will now need to add a facility. Each facility will have its own private and public key assigned to it which is in a lower hierarchy and is linked to the account owner’s private key. The facility should be registered with the actual address of the production facility whereas the account owner can be registered with the address that will be put on the invoice.

Important!! Make sure you store the private key of the facility as it will only be generated once!

When registering a facility, you will be asked to provide a new email address. This should be the email address of the person responsible for the facility. It is possible your organization has only one facility and thus the same person may be the account owner and facility manager. The private keys and public keys are generated locally but need to be linked to an email address so you will need to provide a different email address than the one you used during account creation (for security reasons). Upon registration of the facility, an email will be sent with a link to activate the facility, so you or the facility admin must have access to this email. You will also be asked to provide a password for accessing the admin panel of the facility.

Important!! Make sure you store the private key of the facility as it will only be generated once!

As account owner when logging into the account owner admin panel you will be able to access all facilities. If you are both the account owner and the facility manager, it is thus fine to only use the account owner login information. If the facility manager is a different person, he will be able to login to his facility admin panel with the email and password created when activating the facility.

You will see now that there is an admin panel specifically for the whole organization (the account owner admin panel) and one for each facility.

Reminder: The email and password will be used to log into the admin panel, the private key will be used for all blockchain-related activities (creating data and viewing data).

Congratulations you are now ready to start onboarding your facility to the Unova blockchain ecosystem!

Invite your onboarding team

You will likely want to assign different people to onboard your organization with each one their own responsibilities. To invite your facility onboarding team, access the facility admin panel and go to ‘users & roles’. You will now be able to add different people and assign a role. Some roles will receive their own private and public key which will be linked to the facility keys. As you might have noticed all keys have a hierarchy (account owner keys -> facility admin key -> facility user keys). Some keys can both create and read data whereas others can only read data. Only the facility owner and account owner will be able to invite new users. If you go to the users & roles section under the account owner admin panel you will see all users. In table 1 below you will find the different capabilities each role has.

Table 1 User & roles types

When inviting a user, you will need to provide the private key of the facility you wish to link the user to. Make sure you use the correct private key as the invited user will also receive a key when accepting the email. This locally generated private key will be linked to the private key you provide.

Adding your supply chain business partners

Our system creates the most value the more of your suppliers and customers are onboarded to the system. We thus encourage you to sit with your suppliers and customers and invite them to join the Unova ecosystem. You can simply invite them to join via email. If your supply chain partner is already part of the ecosystem you can simply add them to your partner list.

By having more supply chain partners onboarded you will notice your traceability score increase. We are very excited to see who the first company with perfect traceability will be and will reward this company with a big marketing campaign so this will not remain unnoticed.

Data up

Now that all the first steps have been taken it is time to start creating the assets and events on our test network. One of our core missions is to make the onboarding process as intuitive and easy as we possibly can to allow any kind of organization to onboard without the need of much assistance. See ‘Documentation Chain Builder’ for the full explanation on how to use our chain builder tool. 

The purpose of the Unova Chain builder is to help you visualize, understand, and create the events (or asset creations) that will occur inside your own company. This tool can also be considered as a settings page that will be used in other aspects of the Unova platform and will impact the connector API you can implement. It is thus important you take care when building your chain and be accurate concerning the settings you select.

As you will notice, the Unova platform is designed to be as flexible as possible to allow any company and any product to be registered and onboarded.

At Unova we like to focus on the operational aspects first to make sure all the necessary things are in place to have traceability inside a company. There are 3 ways of registering events or creating assets.

As a company you can choose to use one method or a combination between multiple depending on what data or systems you already have.

To figure out if you already collect the right data for registering the different events or asset creations that will be created on the blockchain system we suggest you look at the chain builder tool first. On an operational level you can then confirm if you have all the data or figure out which data is missing.

Connecting internal system via connector API

If you are one of the companies that have already introduced a very performant internal ERP system which not only has financial reporting and many other functions but can link a product throughout the process, this is for you. If during the process of creating your chain via the chain builder, you noticed that all the data and references between assets are there and can simply be pushed, things will be simple. If you notice gaps in the data or points in the process where nothing is registered, you can also look at the next sections concerning manual input form or Unova internal system.

Our connector API allows you to push the right data to register the correct assets and events Unova provides a holistic data model that enables the frictionless onboarding of real-world supply chain entities, the measurement of their attributes, and the tracking of related logistical events. You can use our connector API to create unique digital identities of items you want to track and analyze along the way. 

This identity and history will be stored permanently and immutably on the blockchain.

The Unova platform has been designed to be a layer on top of your current internal software system (in case you have one). Our goal was to make the implementation the least intrusive possible. Therefore, where possible, we suggest making use of our API option which allows you to send the currently collected data from your software or internal ERP system directly to the Blockchain system.

If you believe much of the data needed is already being collected, we suggest taking the API option for the specific event you wish to create. It may be necessary to make small changes to your system to make sure all relevant data is present.

Manual input form

In the Chain builder tool select manual input form if you wish to manually provide the data via a standard form on our platform. We suggest taking this option if you wish to provide the relevant data concerning the event manually. This option has been created for companies where no internal system is present (like farms) or for special types of events which don’t always occur, and which are not captured via your usual internal system. It is possible to register everything manually if you have no internal system. However, if this is the case, we suggest contacting support, and possibly Unova can provide you with label scanners, touch screens, and label printers and can assist you with creating your own efficient internal system directly connected to our platform.

Unova internal system with physical location hubs (label printing, scanning & touch screens)

Data down

The true value of the system of course comes from the use of the data provided by you and your supply chain business partners. ‘Data down’ will occur in two of our products. The first one is designed for companies in the chain (we refer to it as platform 2) to be able to solve problems like recalls, trace products, and much more. The second one is designed for the end consumer to display more basic traceability information to the end consumer (platform 3 or ‘Consumer Dashboard’).

The ‘data down’ company platform is accessed by providing your private key. The account owner’s private key will be able to see all data whereas the facility admin keys will be limited to the data concerning the facility. We made sure companies would only be able to access data here that is relevant to them (assets that are/were/will be at the facility) or assets created by the facility and all assets that are referenced or related.

Unova trace

In many cases it will be important to be able to trace any product and in an intuitive user-friendly way visualize the full chain of this product. Data is only data and lacks value until it can be used and actually is used to make decisions. The Unova trace module serves exactly this purpose. We are building our platform in a way where we start from traceability and gradually add many additional modules for you to manage your production, transportations, etc. in a way that allows you to do business in a better more efficient way.

Searching for an asset

Tracing in this module starts by searching for an asset. It could be a serial, a lot, or a pallet that you would like to find. There are 3 starting points available. If you know the assetID (which is displayed on the tag of the asset) you can simply type it in. The resulting asset and full traceability can then immediately be shown. However, if you do not know the specific assetID because you don’t have the product nearby for example, you can start by selecting a product label (or product type). For example, you can simply type in Lasagna, and all related products or lasagna types will show up to select from. Next, it’s time to narrow down the search. There are two options for narrowing down further. You can select a date type, for example, expiration date or arrival data or any related date type that is available. Then you simply select the date range and all relevant lots, pallets, or serials will show up for you to select. The second option is to select lot, pallet, or serial and start typing. If you know the asset belonged to a specific pallet or lot, you will then easily be able to find it by narrowing down more. The last search option is for if you simply want to find assets that you have created within a specific time period. Simply select the data range and the assets will show up for you to narrow down further and select an asset. 

Once the asset has been selected the traceability can be shown. There are 3 possible ways to view the result. The farm to store view, ingredient view or map view depending on what you want to see.

Farm to store view

Ingredient view

Map view

Recall system

What when things go wrong and a product is contaminated? I purposely wrote “when” and not “if” because we all know sometimes things go wrong and the only thing left to do is find a good solution. The Unova recall system is designed to do just that! Just select an asset or multiple assets that caused a problem and the system will take care of the rest. Organizations that are involved will be notified and assets recalled before it turns into a problem.

We will discuss the different steps involved in registering a recall.

Initiation: will be done by a company who finds a problem

Approval: will be done by an organization who is a step after the initiator in the chain

Phase 2 initiation: is like an approval but is done by an organization that is located a step in the supply chain before the initiator and when this happens the organizations after this phase 2 initiator will receive notification and can approve (which is, in this case, a phase 2 initiation). Thereby again activating new approval requests.

Phase 1 initiation

It all starts with a phase 1 initiation. A company finds out there was or is a problem with an asset and starts the phase 1 initiation. Relevant information and documents can be added which answers the question of what specifically happened making it easy to understand for your supply chain business partners. This creates a phase 1 initiation event on the asset causing the recall. Now all companies which are a step after the company in the supply chain who are in contact with a relevant asset (for example direct and indirect customers) will be notified and can register a phase 1 approval. Also, the company which had the assets that went into the contaminated product (so step before in the supply chain) will be notified and will be able to register a phase 2 initiation (which is like an approval but has a different effect as explained above).

Phase 1 approval (customers of the initiator)

Each time there is an initiation there can be an approval event registered by the organization located a step after the initiator in the supply chain. This company will be able to check the potentially contaminated assets and verify whether something was wrong. After doing this check the assets that actually get recalled can be selected (by clicking the checkboxes next to the asset). The system will now keep track of all assets that end up being recalled and this data will be available to the initiator also.

Phase 2 initiation (suppliers of initiator)

It is possible that a product was contaminated even before arriving at the initiator organization. Because of this possibility the system will notify the organizations who are the supplier (thus a step before in the chain) of the product. This organization can now check if there was a problem that may affect other customers also. This supplier can now register a phase 2 initiation which now will notify other organizations who are parallel to the initiator who initially were not aware of the problem yet. If this organization finds that there is no problem with the product when it was at this facility, then the phase 2 initiation does not need to happen.

Phase 2 approval

Phase 2 approval is the same as a phase 1 approval except for the fact that the phase 2 approvals are not directly linked to the initial initiator. If phase 2 approval assets are being recalled the phase 1 initiator will not be responsible for this. The phase 2 initiator however could be responsible.

Phase 3 initiator

It is possible the problem occurred even earlier in the chain. Therefore, after a phase 2 initiation there will be a notification sent to the supplier of this supplier. This process of adding another phase could technically keep going until it is confirmed where the problem could have started. If the Phase 3 organization finds that there is most definitely nothing wrong with his product and his suppliers don’t need to be notified, then he does not need to start a phase 3 initiation and the process stops here. All customers of the latest phase initiator will be notified, and all assets will be found very swiftly, and the cost limited.

Certificates & documents

The Unova certificates & documents module enables your organization to upload, view, and share documents, such as audit reports, facility certificates but also documents attached to an asset. You can search by selecting variables such as the owning organization, facility, document type, expiration date, assetID, uniqueID, or EventID.

Consumer dashboard

Due to the many steps in the average supply chain, the link between the farmer or initial producer and the end consumer is usually not very obvious. We believe it’s essential to make this link for various reasons.

At Unova, we designed a fully flexible one-page web application dashboard specifically for the end consumer. This allows the end consumer to scan the product and see who the producer or farmer was and when it was produced. This shows the consumer all relevant steps in the chain and who was in contact with his product at any point in time. A consumer could show gratitude to the producers of the quality product and take responsibility by even offering to pay a few quarters directly to the farmer out of gratitude with the click of a button.

Consumers can rate the product (which will probably happen mostly when something is extremely good or extremely bad). This data is then communicated to the producers of each step in the chain allowing eventually to see trends. Each step in the chain can now feel proud of what they do, and the company can now become a recognized brand and integral part of the product.

By giving more insights into the production of a product a consumer can choose a product from a supply chain that is trusted.

Expanding the platform capabilities

We started this documentation off with a trend starting from de adoption of ERP systems. We then moved on to how Blockchain technologies opened up new possibilities. We then explained how we built our platform to solve many issues occurring in supply chains today and pointed to how the Unova ecosystem functions and can trace products from farm to shop. Traceability is solved, efficient recalls made possible and data sharing has started. All things are in place to start adding capabilities which are only possible when traceability is a fact and our system implemented.

Cold chain quality assurance and hardware devices (IoT)

Every company has an obligation to guarantee a certain level of quality to their customer. Whether this is the end consumer of a direct customer, stability, and quality insurance is essential to maintain competitiveness and predictable revenues.

One way to this would be to consolidate and purchase multiple steps in the chain. However, from a business point of view this is suboptimal, and we advise against it. Each step in the chain is usually the starting point of another chain. Let’s take the example of a retailer and meat as a product. The retailer wants to guarantee a certain level of quality so might consider acquiring the slaughterhouse or cutting facility thinking this is now the chain he will operate. When you look closer you will see that when slaughtering meat there are a lot of side products. To be profitable a company must aim for 100% utilization which is something easy to do when you only operate one step in the chain. For example, you will see a slaughterhouse selling the side product to dog food producers. Probably this dog food will also be sold at the retailer, so will you the retailer now also take over this chain? Or is it not better to focus on the core activities and remain a market leader in the retailer business? The same will be for other steps in the chain, there is usually a good reason why there are many steps in the first place.

But how can you guarantee certain quality if you do not own all steps in the supply chain and let alone the data involved?

Simple, you start off by being able to know where your product has been and who was involved in the production. This is what traceability is all about. Now you can view all relevant data points of your product and encourage your suppliers to add as many events as possible. This is what the basic Unova platform is all about. But wait, it can go further. Most problems or risks occur during the cold chain. Cold chain quality assurance can be guaranteed if you add IoT devices in the mix. These devices can measure any type of condition (some examples are temperature, humidity, vibrations, locations etc.). These devices can send the correct data directly to the Blockchain system where it will be linked to the specific assets or events throughout the chain.

Selling and purchasing of assets

(coming soon)

Transport booking

(coming soon)

Automation and AI

(coming soon)

Documentation Chain Builder

What are assets & events

Asset

A digital entity for any physical conceptual element in your supply chain. Depending on the industry it can be a cow, a box of apples, an apple, a piece of meat, a lasagna, a lot, batch or box, etc… Every asset has a UniqueID that is crypto secured.

Event

Record any relevant and time-stamped information that happened to one or multiple assets. Examples are transports, observations, quality controls medicines administered etc…

All events must contain the name of the event, uniqueID, location, (street & number, zip code & city) and any additional data field. Events are associated with an asset.

Accounts

Every request via our custom API, such as creating or reading assets or events must be cryptographically authenticated. Every application or device talking to Unova needs an account, with corresponding private and public keys to verify the identity.

Every request to the blockchain network needs to be signed using the private key, which is matched by the blockchain to the entity’s public key, to be approved by the system.

The first event occurring in your company will always need to be the inbound transport event. This allows us to always guarantee that we have all data concerning where an asset is throughout the chain. You can choose to create this via the API or manual input (see below). We encourage you to go for the API option for standard things inside your company to reduce overhead.

Step 1: selecting API or Manual input

API option

The Unova platform has been designed to be a layer on top of your current internal software system (in case you have one). Our goal was to make the implementation the least intrusive possible. Therefore, where possible, we suggest making use of our API option which allows you to send the currently collected data from your software or internal ERP system directly to the Blockchain system.

If you believe much of the data needed is already being collected, we suggest taking the API option for the specific event you wish to create. It may be necessary to make small changes to your system to make sure all relevant data is present.

Manual input option

Select a manual input form if you wish to manually provide the data via a standard form on our platform. We suggest taking this option if you wish to provide the relevant data concerning the event manually. This option has been created for companies where no internal system is present (like farms) or for special types of events which don’t always occur, and which are not captured via your usual internal system. It is possible to register everything manually if you have no internal system. However, if this is the case, we suggest contacting support, and possibly Unova can provide you with label scanners, touch screens, and label printers and can assist you with creating your own efficient internal system directly connected to our platform.

Step 2: Event creation vs Asset creation

Every asset creation is by default also an event creation. However, not every event creation will be an asset creation. The difference lies in the fact that an event is always associated with an asset. If there is no asset, then of course the asset will be automatically be created by the API.

The idea is that each step in your chain can be considered to be an event. Some events automatically imply that there will be a new asset creation.

Case 1) Something happens to an asset (Event creation)

To create an event associated with an asset a few things will need to be provided:

1. Eventname:
2. EventType:
3. The fields in the list below:
4. Any extra optional field name:

for example:

– TransportCompany

– Coming from location

(or any other field name we might wish to add to this event as extra data)

This will allow us to associate the specific event and the additional data (you can add field names) to the correct asset moving through the supply chain.

or each event type (or event name) you create you can also add other field names that allow you to add any data which is relevant to this event.

Examples of events:

• Inbound transport (arrival of assets)
• Outbound transport (assets leaving your organization)
• Quality checks
• Observation event
• Disaggregation event
• Decommission event
• Other…

Case 2) A new asset gets created (with or without a reference to a previous asset)

To create an asset (which is technically also a first event associated with that asset) the following data fields will need to be provided:

In addition to these fields it is possible to create 3 types of assets:

• Serials
• Lots
• Pallets

Serials are the most basic form of asset and can be any identifiable product (needs to have a ‘uniqueID’). It could be an asset that is created from a previous asset (an aggregation, transformation) which means that it can have one or multiple references or ‘assets referenced/added’. This will link the newly created asset to the previous asset. Or it could be just the creation of an asset without a reference (see commission event) (most likely to happen on the farm, for example: animal birth).

Lot, is technically the same as a serial but can be used to indicate that there are multiple products inside the asset

It is also possible to create a lot with just pieces in it that are not uniquely identifiable. A lot will usually contain only one type of product inside. So, it is like a serial but with the added optionality of having identifiable assets inside which is not the case for serials. Lots are like a hybrid between serials and pallets.

Example 1: A box of avocados that don’t have a tag on each avocado can be a serial or a lot (you can choose).

Example 2: The same box of avocados that have a label on each avocado and where each avocado is registered as an asset is called a Pallet and should not be registered as a serial or lot.

A pallet is an asset that can contain multiple serials.

The purpose of creating a pallet is to have a structure around multiple assets so you need to register an event only on the pallet asset and the event will be created (added) to all the referenced assets. This is a very useful structure for registering outbound or inbound transports or movements of multiple assets at the same time.

Unit of measure

The next thing you should do is select the unit of measure. This will impact the optional field of Quantity. When creating an asset, it will be common that you wish to tell the system how much of something the asset is.

Example: if you wish to create an asset that represents a piece of meat, it is advised you also add how much the weight is of this piece. You will thus select the unit of measure (like kg) and then you can each time register the quantity.

Is there a reference or not?

A reference means that an asset has been created from a previous asset. Since the goal is to trace a product from beginning to end all references must be registered.

Example 1: a farmer registers a cow birth. In this case no reference needs to be made because it is a new asset being created and registered.

Example 2: A slaughterhouse cuts the cow into 4 big quarters. Each quarter will need to be registered as new assets with a reference to the cow.

Special cases lots & pallets

For creating a pallet with a reference the situation is almost the same. The difference is however that a pallet does not reference an asset that now no longer exists (think of the cow in the previous example). In the case of a pallet the assets which are referenced will still exist and have their own uniqueID. This means that it is possible to remove (or take out) these identifiable assets, meaning that the events associated with the pallet after them being taken out, will not be associated with the asset that is no longer part of the pallet.

Congratulations you can now add your first event creation type or asset creation type to your internal chain!

Step 3 implementing the API

If you have added events or asset creations with the API selection option. The next step is to integrate this API.

Go to the following link for the API documentation

Documentation Chain Builder

Types of asset creations

Commission event

The first time an asset is created on the system without there being a reference to a previous asset. The commission event is most likely to happen at the farm but could happen anywhere an asset gets registered.

Commission event can only occur when creating a serial type asset.

Transformation event

A Transformation Event describes the irreversible changing or combining of a product or products to create a new product. When an asset or multiple assets get transformed or used in a new product where the new product has a reference to the previous asset(s) this is referred to as a transformation event.

Transformation events can occur when creating a serial or lot type asset which will need to be provided under the packagingID field

Aggregation event

When creating a pallet which contains uniquely identifiable (and referenced) assets you should create an aggregation event. The pallet than can have a reference to each product inside by providing all the references.

The purpose of creating a pallet is to have a structure around multiple assets so you need to register an event only on the pallet asset and the event will be created (added) to all the referenced assets. This is a very useful structure for registering outbound or inbound transports or movements of multiple assets at the same time.

Documentation Chain Builder

Event creations related end of asset

Decommission event

A decommission (or end of asset) event describes the end of an asset. It is essentially the removal of that asset from the supply chain. A decommission event is essentially the inverse of a commission event.

Disaggregation event

A disaggregation event is the inverse of an aggregation event. It describes the separation of items combined in an aggregation event. The products combined in an aggregation event like during the creation of a pallet are separated into their original forms (assets are tagged and thus uniquely identifiable). For example, a received pallet is separated (disaggregated) into one lot of apples and one lot of avocados. The assets inside the pallet can then be used again separately and events can be registered on them.

Documentation Chain Builder

Event creations for transports

Inbound transport

For the system to work accurately we require the first event inside each step in the chain to either be a commission event or an inbound transport event. The inbound transport event can be registered on the serials or the pallets or lots and symbolizes the arrival of the assets at the facility.

The fields are:

Outbound transport

Outbound transport is an event that should be registered when an asset (lot, pallet, serial) departures the facility and goes to the next step in the chain. Outbound transport is not mandatory for the system to function accurately but is strongly recommended.

Fields are: