Major car manufacturing corporation BMW Group is reportedly set to introduce a blockchain-powered tool to help with supply chain issue, to a group of selected clients, within 2020. 

Specifically, the new blockchain-based solution – which goes by the name “PartChain” – has undergone a pilot phase conducted by BMW last year, with a successful result.

In the previous version, PartChain was primarily built to provide an enhanced level of traceability and instant data transparency for for automobile parts, throughout sophisticated supply chain systems, with involvement from different global clients. 

The version rolled out last year focused in supporting the purchasing and tracking process of front lights, where the entire 31 plants of BMW have participated, and 3 other locations of the supplier Automotive Lighting.

Andreas Wendt – one of BMW AG’s Board of Management – in charge of overseeing the network for purchasing and supplying of the corporation – reportedly revealed that BMW wants to increase the scale of its project, introducing it to other supplier, hence 10 were selected for 2020. 

For the long run, BMW looks to utilize blockchain for designing “an open platform that will allow data within supply chains to be exchanged and shared safely and anonymized across the industry.” 

Despite the scope of the project has been limited to only component tracking, BMW intends to develop it into a tool that also helps with tracing critical raw materials for manufacturing “from mine to smelter”.

Apart from blockchain, PartChain further adopts the cloud tech provided by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.a