“NEC’s Blockchain focuses on resolving existing Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) limitations, we have taken a leap further in introducing a potentially-revolutionary consensus protocol - FastBFT. This novel consensus protocol not only ensures high availability and security, but also delivers high throughput.”
Mr. Patrick Leung, Project Director
Background
The wine supply chain is one of the most complicated and disintegrated supply chains with distant grape-growers, suppliers, producers and demanding consumers. This complicated network poses challenges not only for efficient production and supply, but vulnerable to counterfeiting, adulteration, usage of hazardous and excessive chemicals.
These issues call forth a solution which can build trust among different stakeholders as well as in consumers by providing visibility into the supply chain at different stages and to verify the ingredients, composition and other factors such as vineyard location, weather conditions etc. from farm to bottle.
To do this, NEC Hong Kong and GS1 Hong Kong jointly developed the Wine Traceability Solution using NEC’s Blockchain platform and GS1’s Global Supply Chain Standards interfacing with GS1 Hong Kong’s ezTRACK™ platform.
Solution
The blockchain based traceability system aims to enhance the cross-border supply chain visibility and can solve the challenges of counterfeiting and integrity by recording every transaction as a block in a chain. Inherently these blocks are immutable and any tampering with a block shall break the chain due to lack of further consensus. With the appropriate permissions, relevant stakeholders of the system are able to query a secured distributed ledger and ultimately trace the origins and journey of a wine product.
NEC’s Blockchain is based on a novel architecture that caters to meeting industry standards. The architecture comprises of satellite chains that privately run different consensus protocols in parallel, boosting the scalability of the system, and allows a blockchain administrator to oversee the entire network and enforce specific policies via smart contracts. Moreover, NEC’s Blockchain combines hardware-based trusted execution environments with lightweight secret sharing.
The solution integrates with GS1 Hong Kong’s ezTRACK™platform and based on GS1 global standards. ezTRACK™, a platform that offers real-time information visibility across worldwide supply chains, can effectively track and trace the flow of goods and product information from point of manufacture to point of sale through a robust Electronic Product Code™ (EPC) standard-based platform.
As a cloud-based application compatible with various technologies including Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), barcode, Global Positioning System (GPS), sensors, ezTRACK™ runs various solutions that allow enterprises to instantly access business-critical product information related to work-in-progress status, product inventory data, delivery schedules, etc.
GS1 standards used or solution (s) / service (s) applied
• ezTRACK™
Benefits
The Wine Traceability Solution provides following benefits to the users:
1. Enhance the visibility of Wine Supply Chain Traceability and ensure provenance and authenticity for every bottle of wine;
2. Ensure the data privacy and confidentiality with Private and Confidential Satellite Chains;
3. Warrant high security against cyber attacks.
About the Company
Established in 1984, NEC Hong Kong Limited (NEC HK) has been rapidly expanding its activities to meet growing customer demands in Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China. As a leading information and communications technology provider, NEC HK provides innovative solutions and infrastructure to promote safety, security and enhance the quality of life for individuals and the community.
