Two Austrian IT companies have created a partnership to jointly offer services that improve traceability of documentation in the steel industry. The “Steel But Smart” venture comprises blockchain interface solutions provider Riddle&Code and S1Seven, a company developing solutions particular to the steel industry.
Europe’s steel production sites and processing companies exchange around 100 million paper certificates every year to meet regulatory requirements for material quality documentation, the partners say. While more and more machines are becoming connected to the internet, these documents remain paper-based and non-machine readable.
Such traditional inefficiencies, along with a lack of data processing standards, keep opening opportunities for fraud and negligence, the companies tell Kallanish. Riddle&Code and S1Seven aim at building a blockchain-based notarisation service for certificates. This provides a product with a digital, tamper-proof identity, and traces each step of its journey, from raw material to final application.
Steel But Smart supports all currently used tagging methods such as numerical marking and barcoding, but enhances the security by adding mass balance proofs. It ensures that certificates can only be issued for actually physically produced or transferred quantities, the companies claim.
Riddle&Code has worked within the highly-regulated Swiss banking industry, and developed solutions with partners such as Daimler, utility Wien Energie and Deloitte.