Relabeling-Resistant Item Identifier Binding Across Supply Chain Domains
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Solution Overview
Problem
In supply chains, the lack of universal support for a single identification technology leads to fragmented visibility across multiple organizations, causing challenges in tracking and identifying items as they change hands, due to different technologies and identifier systems used by each organization, resulting in loss of end-to-end transparency and automation potential.
Innovation Solution
An item identity federation and visibility service that automatically matches visibility policies and identifiers across organizations, using connectors to interface with various identification technologies, allowing for the binding of different identifiers and providing relabeling-resistant item identifiers, thus enabling visibility across domains without requiring a common technology standard or peer-to-peer integration.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each organization uses its own identifier system and technology for tracking items, then each organization can effectively track items within its domain, but visibility and tracking capability are fragmented across multiple organizations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary system (the visibility service platform) that mediates between different organization identifier systems. This intermediary binds and maps different identifier types (e.g., carrier identifiers, warehouse identifiers) to create a unified view, enabling cross-organization visibility without requiring organizations to adopt a common identifier standard.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal identifier binding mechanism that works across multiple organization domains. The system can handle various identifier types from different technologies (barcodes, RFID, GPS coordinates) and bind them together, providing multi-functional compatibility without requiring each organization to use the same technology.
2Adaptability or versatility
If organizations implement different identification technologies and identifier systems, then each organization can optimize for its specific needs, but end-to-end transparency is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The visibility service platform acts as an intermediary that accepts different identifier formats from various organizations, binds them together, and provides unified visibility. This allows each organization to maintain its optimized identifier system while still achieving end-to-end transparency through the binding mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the identifier binding process into discrete components: capturing identifiers at different domains, binding them together through the visibility service, and presenting unified information. This segmentation allows each organization to implement its own identification technology while the overall system integrates them.
3Loss of information
If a universal identifier standard is adopted across all organizations, then end-to-end visibility is achieved, but implementation complexity and resistance to change increase
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of requiring all organizations to adopt a universal standard, the patent introduces an intermediary binding service that translates between different identifier systems. This approach achieves end-to-end visibility without imposing a single standardized identifier format on all organizations, reducing implementation complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a dynamic identifier binding mechanism that adapts to different identifier formats from different organizations. Rather than requiring a static universal standard, the system dynamically binds and maps various identifier types together, providing flexibility and reducing the burden on organizations to change their existing systems.
4Ease of operation
If organizations relabel items with their own identifiers when taking custody, then tracking within the organization is simplified, but the ability to track items across the supply chain is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The visibility service platform serves as an intermediary that captures both the original identifier and the new relabeled identifier when items change hands between organizations. By binding these identifiers together, the system preserves the simplicity of internal relabeling operations while maintaining cross-chain tracking capability through the bound identifier history.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary binding of identifiers at the moment of transfer between organizations. When an organization relabels items, the system captures both the old and new identifiers and binds them together in advance, ensuring that the relabeling operation does not compromise future tracking capability across the supply chain.
Data Source
AI summary
According to one or more embodiments of the disclosure, a device makes a determination that an asset identification system has been deployed at an organization. The device automatically deploys, based on the determination, a connector for the asset identification system to capture labeling information indicative of transport of one or more physical assets via the organization. The device receives, from the connector, a binding request tag notification indicative of transport of a particular physical asset of the one or more physical assets via the organization. The device associates the binding request tag notification with one or more identifiers for the particular physical asset used by one or more other organizations.