tex.tracer: Tracing garments through supply chains

tex.tracer: Tracing garments through supply chains

tex.tracer: Tracing garments through supply chains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5pD7QVWJq0

tex.tracer was founded by Bart Westerman and Jolanda Kooi who have assembled extensive fashion industry experience working in China and Hong Kong, and both now run separate importing companies in Amsterdam.
Fujitsu has been globally active in Blockchain technology since 2015 when it was an early member of the Hyperledger project, an open-source community focused on developing stable frameworks for enterprise-grade Blockchain deployments.

The fashion industry has faced criticism over how its supply chains operate. Although they may want more transparency, brand owners and retailers have never had an effective way to achieve it. With the new supply chain transparency platform called tex.tracer, brand owners receive the insights they need to act upon and with the click of a button report to all stakeholders. By scanning a QR code on a garment with their mobile, consumers can trace the garment’s history.

On the tex.tracer platform, information is obtained from brand owners when they register a garment, and the system automatically emails companies down the supply chain. Data is verified using mobile geolocation, time stamps and digital handshakes, certification, and automated checks. If anomalies are detected, the system will not accept the data entry. Once verified, the data is stored using Blockchain to ensure privacy, trustworthiness, and credibility. Blockchain provides a public electronic ledger that can be openly shared among disparate users to create an unchangeable record of transactions with each entry time-stamped and linked to the next one.

tex.tracer was founded by Bart Westerman and Jolanda Kooi who have assembled extensive fashion industry experience working in China and Hong Kong, and both now run separate importing companies in Amsterdam.
Fujitsu has been globally active in Blockchain technology since 2015 when it was an early member of the Hyperledger project, an open-source community focused on developing stable frameworks for enterprise-grade Blockchain deployments.

The fashion industry has faced criticism over how its supply chains operate. Although they may want more transparency, brand owners and retailers have never had an effective way to achieve it. With the new supply chain transparency platform called tex.tracer, brand owners receive the insights they need to act upon and with the click of a button report to all stakeholders. By scanning a QR code on a garment with their mobile, consumers can trace the garment’s history.

On the tex.tracer platform, information is obtained from brand owners when they register a garment, and the system automatically emails companies down the supply chain. Data is verified using mobile geolocation, time stamps and digital handshakes, certification, and automated checks. If anomalies are detected, the system will not accept the data entry. Once verified, the data is stored using Blockchain to ensure privacy, trustworthiness, and credibility. Blockchain provides a public electronic ledger that can be openly shared among disparate users to create an unchangeable record of transactions with each entry time-stamped and linked to the next one.

tex.tracer Co-Founder and CEO, Bart Westerman and Co-Founder and CPO, Jolanda Kooi met 10 years ago and joined forces with a mutual wish to make their industry more sustainable.

“We became Fairtrade and Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified,” says Westerman. “We were hoping that with these licenses we could contribute to the necessary changes in our industry, but it did not work out fast enough. Although the Fairtrade and GOTS certification process gave us a good insight into the supply chain, they are limited to organic cotton fibers, and it takes time to process the information through the systems in place. We thought with present-day technology it should be possible to track any kind of material and do it in real-time.”

When they started drawing the outline for tex.tracer in 2018, they realized that it was something that should not be restricted to the supply chains of their own importing companies, but should be used industry-wide, and could apply to any other supply chains.

Each supply chain partner uploads product data, pictures and documents in the tex.tracer web-app. Using this encrypted time-stamp and geo-location data, tex.tracer checks and verifies whether all uploaded information is produced at the claimed time and location. Peer-to-peer reviews add in an additional check to guarantee that the uploaded details are also backed by the next supply chain partner.

The tex.tracer SaaS platform creates a transparent fashion supply chain using blockchain technology. It allows brands and retailers to capture data easily and report to stakeholders, lowering the burden of sustainability, CSR and compliance.

Following a soft launch at the start of 2021, early tex.tracer users included 10 brands with 200 orders going through the system. With an average of 10 supply chain stakeholders per order, this amounted to around 2,000 interactions.

tex.tracer Co-Founder and CEO, Bart Westerman and Co-Founder and CPO, Jolanda Kooi met 10 years ago and joined forces with a mutual wish to make their industry more sustainable.

“We became Fairtrade and Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified,” says Westerman. “We were hoping that with these licenses we could contribute to the necessary changes in our industry, but it did not work out fast enough. Although the Fairtrade and GOTS certification process gave us a good insight into the supply chain, they are limited to organic cotton fibers, and it takes time to process the information through the systems in place. We thought with present-day technology it should be possible to track any kind of material and do it in real-time.”

When they started drawing the outline for tex.tracer in 2018, they realized that it was something that should not be restricted to the supply chains of their own importing companies, but should be used industry-wide, and could apply to any other supply chains.

Each supply chain partner uploads product data, pictures and documents in the tex.tracer web-app. Using this encrypted time-stamp and geo-location data, tex.tracer checks and verifies whether all uploaded information is produced at the claimed time and location. Peer-to-peer reviews add in an additional check to guarantee that the uploaded details are also backed by the next supply chain partner.

The tex.tracer SaaS platform creates a transparent fashion supply chain using blockchain technology. It allows brands and retailers to capture data easily and report to stakeholders, lowering the burden of sustainability, CSR and compliance.

Following a soft launch at the start of 2021, early tex.tracer users included 10 brands with 200 orders going through the system. With an average of 10 supply chain stakeholders per order, this amounted to around 2,000 interactions.

https://www.tex-tracer.com/