The supplier as the first link in the value chain Several ‘end-users’ are far more interested in the CoC of the products that they purchase than the suppliers are. In all cases, even if the end-user is the direct customer of the system, the first act is to create a ‘supplier’ within their CoC. After the creation of the supplier within the system, all subsequent supply chain interactions are fully in the hands of the participants to the CoC, who in turn and in a controlled manner, will be the custodian of the raw materials and of the manufactured (semi) finished products.
The original raw material supplier steps in The supplier has to generate a supply in supply lots (i.e. on a daily basis, equivalent to some thousands of tons of raw coal per day); this act generates one quick read code (QRC) per day associated to the actually extracted quantity of raw coal. The supplier’s task, once the initial set-up is complete, only consists of:
Figure 1. Guaranteeing the full traceability of the origin of coal.
Defining the material to supply: a one-off activity. Creating the transporting company and the next user of the coal in the system (in this case the next user is internal – the refinery, and just transportations over conveyor belts are used). Defining an actual supply lot for that day’s raw coal production. Assigning that lot to the transportation via conveyor belt.
Every time that a new user is created, an automatic email is sent to the email address provided by the supplier. The concept of CoC fully applies here: the supplier, the very first custodian, knows perfectly well to whom the material must be delivered and who is going to carry out the transportation, so the next two custodians in the CoC have been easily identified.
Generating QRCs The step of creating an actual supply for the raw coal lot generates a master QRC: every subsequent QRC generated along the CoC will be linked to this one via a series of unchangeable links, all mastered by the web-based system, and this constitutes the guarantee about the solidity and the continuity of the CoC. Also, assigning the lot for transportation to a logistics provider generates a QRC that will be readable exclusively by the transporting entity (the ‘custodian’ dedicated to that transportation, i.e. the captain of a vessel or a truck driver) and by the receiver. If transportation occurs via trucks, the truck driver will need to install a dedicated application on their mobile phone, by simply inserting their telephone number and nothing else. As the logistics provider knows all needed transportation details, the information provided is enough to identify, without margin of doubt, the custodian for the trip. Once the application is installed, the truck driver must scan the QRC provided by the supplier for that lot. The application will record the geolocation of the scanning, the timestamp, and will consider the driver as the new custodian of the raw coal lot.
Geolocation and security
Figure 2. Tracking each transportation step individually.
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WORLD COAL ISSUE 2 2021
Some companies need to know where their lot is at any moment during the trip, or want to ensure that the journey does not cross unwanted borders (i.e. in the case of sanctioned countries). Although several expensive systems exist to accomplish this task, such as container shipments, VAREYE has implemented a premium feature in its smartphone application to allow for GPS tracking of the smartphone position during the journey from the port of loading to the port of discharge, assuming that the custodian must be present during the trip as the responsible person for the lot.
