Consuming Linked data in Supply Chains: Enabling data visibility via Linked Pedigrees

COLD/ISWC 2013, 22nd October, Sydney

Consuming Linked data in Supply Chains:Enabling data visibility via Linked

Pedigreeshttp://windermere.aston.ac.uk/~monika/papers/SolankiAndBrewster_COLD2013.pdf

Monika Solanki and Christopher BrewsterAston Business School

Aston University, Birmingham, UK

[email protected] Consuming Linked data in Supply Chains Enabling data visibility via Linked Pedigrees

http://windermere.aston.ac.uk/~monika/papers/SolankiAndBrewster_COLD2013.pdf


Motivation: Visibility in Supply Chains



Motivation

Visibility*“Visibility is the ability to know exactly where things are at anypoint in time, or where they have been, and why”.

Critical to achieving visibility in the end-to-end supply chainis collaboration between trading partners.Successful collaboration largely depends on the ease andtimeliness with which real-time process and productknowledge can be shared between trading partners andutilised in decision making.

*http://www.gs1.org/docs/GS1_SupplyChainVisibility_WhitePaper.pdf


http://www.gs1.org/docs/GS1_SupplyChainVisibility_WhitePaper.pdf

http://www.gs1.org/docs/GS1_SupplyChainVisibility_WhitePaper.pdf


MotivationExisting mechanisms for sharing data and informationalong supply chains are highly restricted and extremelycomplex.There is a lack of information models that facilitate theexchange of end-to-end supply chain product and processknowledge.There is a very conservative “need-to-know” attitude suchthat essentially information flows only “one-up, one down”.

Information and knowledge need to be interlinked, shared andmade available consistently along the supply chains not leastfor regulatory reasons but also due to increasing consumerdemands of being able to track and trace commodities.



MotivationSupply chain domains where data interlinking and sharingissues are most prevalent: The Agri-food and TheHealthcare sector.Agri-food supply chains,

Tracking and tracing of foods in the context of health andsafety: prevent and respond to food emergencies (mad cowdisease, and most recently E. Coli).Growing desire on the part of food consumers to knowmore about their food.

HealthcareCapture and document the chain of custody and the chainof ownership of a pharmaceutical product as it movesthrough the supply chain.



Outline

Linked Pedigrees

Reference Architecture

Linked Pedigree Communication Protocol

Exemplifying Linked Pedigrees

Conclusions



Background: Pedigrees

Most widely prevalent in the pharmaceutical industry.Pedigree(e-pedigree) is an audit trail that records the pathand ownership of a drug as it moves through the supplychain.Each stakeholder involved in the manufacture ordistribution of the drug adds information to the pedigree.The Pedigree standard* provides an XML schema for thedescription of the life history of a product.“Event based Pedigree”: utilises EPCglobal’s EPCISspecification for capturing events in the supply chain andgenerating pedigrees based on a relevant subset of thecaptured events.

* http://www.gs1.org/gsmp/kc/epcglobal/pedigree


http://www.gs1.org/gsmp/kc/epcglobal/pedigree


Linked Pedigrees

Datasets described and accessed using linked dataprinciples.Encapsulate the knowledge required to trace and trackproducts in supply chains on a Web scale.Facilitate the interlinking of a variety of related and relevantdata, i.e., product master data with event data.Based on a domain independent data model for thesharing of knowledge among Semantic Web/Linked dataaware systems deployed for the tracking, tracing and datacapture.Product knowledge shared among partners as productsphysically flow downstream or upstream in the supplychain.



Knowledge Encapsulation in LinkedPedigrees

Direct linkages in the linked pedigree generated by each supplychain trading partner

URIs forproduct master data: product identifiers, sensor basedproduct related information, e.g., storage conditions.transaction data: invoices, order numbers, quantity.consignment information: logistics, receiver, shipper,locationData interpretation rules if any.

URIs for the pedigree datasets from the stakeholders in theimmediate upstream or downstream of the supply chain.



OntoPedigree: A CO design pattern

Competency questions:Who is the creator of the pedigree ?What is the supply chain creation status of a givenpedigree?Which are the business transactions recorded against aparticular consignment?Which products have been shipped together?Which other pedigrees are included in the receivedpedigree?



OntoPedigree: A CO design pattern



Event based Linked Pedigrees

EPC*: Electronic Product Code A universal identifier encodedon data carriers that gives a unique, serialised identity to aspecific physical object.

EPCIS*: Electronic Product Code Information Services Aratified(2007) EPCglobal standard for sharing EPC relatedinformation between trading partners in a supply chain.

LinkedEPCIS*: an open source Java API and a referenceimplementation for capturing, storing and querying EPCISevents.

*http://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/tds/tds_1_7-Std.pdf*http://www.gs1.org/gsmp/kc/epcglobal/epcis

*http://code.google.com/p/linked-epcis/*http://windermere.aston.ac.uk/~monika/papers/SolankiDeRiVE2013.pdf


http://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/tds/tds_1_7-Std.pdf

http://www.gs1.org/gsmp/kc/epcglobal/epcis

http://code.google.com/p/linked-epcis/

http://windermere.aston.ac.uk/~monika/papers/SolankiDeRiVE2013.pdf


Generating Linked Pedigrees event URIs

Events incorporated in pedigree creation

commissioning: uniquely identifying productsshipping: associating products with ordersreceiving: associating received products with orders

Pedigree Component Linking relationship Resource identifierProduct information hasProductInfo Product data URIs

Serialised product data URIsConsignment information hasConsignmentInfo Commissioning events -

Object event/Aggregation event URIsTransaction information hasTransactionInfo Shipping events -

Transaction event URIs



Reference Architecture

An open, scalable and decentralised architecture.Every actor in the supply chain manages its own datastore.Linked pedigrees obtained via a pull model.Shared data models, vocabularies, Web based and mobileapplication components are provided as cloud basedservices.



Reference ArchitectureAgri-food supply chain



Reference Architecture: Key ComponentsLinked Pedigree Manager agent

An integral component of every stakeholderparticipating in event based tracking and tracing.

Interfaces between the EPCIS event store andexternal systems.

RESTfully queries linked pedigrees fromupstream/downstream stakeholders.

Validates electronic information recorded onreceived physical goods against the query results.

Generates the pedigree on the fly from theknowledge curated in the event data stores of thestakeholder, assigns it a URI and include outgoinglinks to external datasets.



Reference Architecture: Key ComponentsIntegrated Linked Pedigree Store

Pedigree definitions include pedigree URIsfrom the upstream or downstreamstakeholders.

They can be sequentially traversed, toeventually construct an ordered chain ofpedigrees.

Access control restrictions mean that it may not be possible forstakeholders themselves to obtain complete information relatedto products and consignments from every other stakeholder.

The integrated linked pedigree store provides a service that canfacilitate the end-to-end dereferencing of linked pedigrees in thesupply chain.



Linked Pedigree Communication Protocol



Linked Pedigrees: Agri-food supply chains

The tomato supply chain involves thousands of farmers,hundreds of traders and few retail groups



Linked Pedigrees: Agri-food supply chains



Agri-food supply chainsPedigree sent from Farmer to Trader

### http://fispace.aston.ac.uk/franzfarmer/pedigrees/FranzTomatoFarmerPedigree123

fsc:FranzTomatoFarmerPedigree123 rdf:type ped:Pedigree;ped:hasSerialNumber "tomPed123"^^xsd:String;ped:hasStatus ped:Initial;ped:hasConsignmentInfo fci:FranzFarmerObjectEvent10,

fci:FranzFarmerAggregationEvent6;ped:hasTransactionInfo fti:FranzFarmerShippingEvent12;ped:hasProductInfo ftp:FranzTomatoesMay2013Data.



Agri-food supply chainsPedigree sent from Trader to Distributor

### http://fispace.aston.ac.uk/joetrader/pedigrees/JoeTomatoTraderPedigree456

jsc:JoeTomatoTraderPedigree456 rdf:type ped:Pedigreeped:hasSerialNumber "joeTradePed456"^^xsd:String;ped:hasStatus ped:Intermediate;ped:hasConsignmentInfo jci:JoeTraderObjectEvent20,

jci:JoeTraderObjectEvent30;ped:hasTransactionInfo jti:JoeTraderTransactionEvent40;ped:hasProductInfo jpi:JoeTradesMay2013Info.ped:hasReceivedPedigree fsc:FranzTomatoFarmerPedigree123,

bsc:BobTomatoFarmerPedigree123.



ConclusionsData visibility (tracking and tracing) in supply chains hasreceived considerable attention in recent years.Semantic Web standards, ontologies and linked data canbe utilised to curate and represent real time supply chainknowledge via “linked pedigrees”.“OntoPedigree” a CO design pattern provides aminimalistic abstraction for designing domain specificpedigree ontologies.The reference architecture and the linked pedigreecommunication protocol exemplify pedigree exchangebetween supply chain partners.The proposed approach is domain independent and canbe widely applied to most scenarios of traceability.



Future?


Technology

Consuming Linked data in Supply Chains: Enabling data visibility via Linked Pedigrees