Traceability FOSS

Trace-X is a system for tracking parts along the supply chain.

A high level of transparency across the supplier network enables faster intervention based on a recorded event in the supply chain. This saves costs by seamlessly tracking parts and creates trust through clearly defined and secure data access by the companies and persons involved in the process.

Table of Contents

• Trace-X
  • Introduction
    • Vision and Mission Statement
    • Trace-X Feature list
  • Installation
  • How to contribute
  • Releasing
  • Frontend Application
    • Challenges and solutions
    • Application authentication
    • Application architecture & patterns
    • User guide
    • Frontend Testing strategy
  • The backend application
    • Prerequisites
    • Backend Testing strategy
  • API documentation
  • Licenses
  • Notice for Docker image
  • Contact

Introduction

Vision and Mission Statement

Trace-X empowers all companies from SMEs to large OEMs to participate in parts traceability with an Open-Source solution.

The Open-Source Traceability application is developed within the Catena-X project and enables all companies to participate in Parts Traceability. Trace-X offers capabilities to ingest data for serialized parts and batches as well as their child components. Within CX, we strive to establish a standardized, data-sovereign and interoperable exchange of traceability data along the value creation chain.

The application gives an overview of the supplier network and the supply chain. A high level of transparency across the supplier network enables faster intervention based on recorded events in the supply chain. Additionally, automated massages regarding Quality related incidents and a tool for inspecting the supply chain helps companies in these fast-moving times.

All this saves' costs by seamlessly tracking parts as well as creates trust through clearly defined and secure data access by the companies and persons involved in the process.

Trace-X Feature list

Trace-X as the Open-Source solution for Parts Traceability offers the following functionalities:

• List and view manufactured parts based on BoM AsBuilt
• List and view planned parts based on BoM AsPlanned
• Filter and search functionality on part views
• Show detailed information on manufactured parts
  • Asset Administration Shell description
  • Submodel description such as
    • SerialPart
    • SingleLevelBomAsBuilt
    • SingleLevelUsageAsBuilt
    • Batch
    • JustInSequence
    • PartAsPlanned
    • SingleLevelBomAsPlanned
    • SingleLevelUsageAsPlanned
• List and view Supplier parts based on BoM As Built
• List of Supplier parts based on SingleLevelBomAsBuilt/SingleLevelUsageAsBuilt Aspect
• View parts and parts relations in parts tree
• Send and receive quality investigations along the supply chain
  • Quality Investigations (Company to Supplier)
  • Quality Alerts (Company to Customers)

Installation

• see Installation guide

How to contribute

A detailed guide on how to contribute can be found here.

Releasing

Here is our Releasing Guide.

Frontend Application

This application serves as a user entry point to the Catena-X network.

It's written in Typescript based on the Angular framework. We decided on using Angular because of two important aspects. Firstly, Angular comes with strict guidelines, which makes it harder to start working on for new developers, but for established developers it is easy to start working with. Secondly, Angular scales perfectly in the long run. Because of the restricted possibilities and strict guidelines it is hard to implement multiple solutions for the same problem. e.g. Storing data or routing. With that in mind it made sense it chose Angular for an open source project.

Source files are exposed statically through the NGINX web server.

Challenges and Solutions

"Visualisation of traceability" is one of our most important feature, but once was one of our biggest problems. We wanted to achieve something that is visually pleasing, is easy to use and performs very good in a browser application. Our first approach was to use HTML canvas. But it turned out it is hard to perform accurate actions inside a canvas. That is why we decided on using the D3 library. D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG, and CSS. Because it uses SVGs, we knew it will perform great. And we are able to have pinpoint accuracy when it comes to user actions.

Application Authentication

Please find here some important information about the app authentication.

Application Architecture & Patterns

This Architecture gives you a roadmap and best practices to follow when building an application so that you end up with a well-structured app.

User Guide

A detailed explanation of how to use the application.

Frontend Testing Strategy

See Testing.

Backend Application

Backend Prerequisites

• JDK 21
• Docker Engine

Backend Testing Strategy

See Testing.

API Documentation

The project follows OpenAPI Specification in order to document implemented REST Endpoints. The documentation can be found under /openapi directory or can be viewed in the Swagger UI accessing the url: {projectBasePath}/api/swagger-ui/index.html

Licenses

• Apache License 2.0
• CC BY 4.0 License

Notice for Docker Image

Below you can find the information regarding Docker Notice for this application.

• Traceability Backend Docker Notice
• Traceability Frontend Docker Notice

Contact

Contact the Eclipse Tractus-X developers via the developer mailing list.

• https://accounts.eclipse.org/mailing-list/tractusx-dev

Contact the project developers via eclipse matrix chat.

• Eclipse Matrix Chat https://chat.eclipse.org/#/room/#tractusx-trace-x:matrix.eclipse.org