The relevance of Traceability
Traceability refers to the capability to monitor a product’s entire lifecycle — from initial design through its production and usage phase to eventual recycling or disposal. It involves tracking where and when specific materials, components, or software elements were used.
Traceability is essential for several key areas and builds the basis for multitude data exchange Use Cases, such as blocking notifications, quality, circular economy and others. Its main characteristics are:
- Easy and secure data exchange: It is the interoperable basis for enabling Business Use Cases.
- Supply Chain Transparency: Fast and accurate traceability of vehicles and parts for process optimization along the value chain.
- Regulatory compliance: It ensures adherence to existing and forthcoming legal standards and industry regulations.
Catena-X certified Traceability
As a Catena-X certified partner, we develop solutions fully aligned with Catena-X standards — ensuring interoperability, data security, and future readiness. Within the shared Catena-X ecosystem, all participants can document and exchange information about their hardware and software components. This enables continuous and certified traceability across the entire automotive value chain, creating consistent and trustworthy data chains that serve as the foundation for numerous data-driven use cases.
What is Traceability?
Traceability in the context of the automotive industry means the ability to track and trace parts and materials across the entire supply chain. It is essential for enabling data-driven Use Cases such as quality management, root cause analysis, and the circular economy, without compromising data sovereignty.
Using standardized digital twins and shared semantic models, all supply chain participants can benefit from transparency across supply chain and tiers. It allows fast responses to quality issues and supports the implementation of corrective measures at any stage.
Key aspects of traceability include:
- End-to-end tracking of serialized parts and material batches
- Digital twins of physical assets linked via Bill of Material structures
- Standardized data sharing across all n-tier suppliers (one-up/one-down principle)
- Fast root cause identification and quality issue resolution
- Automated Quality Alerts, Block Information, and Quality Investigations via Catena-X standards
Our Traceability Solution
Our bundle enables an easy start into your own Traceability journey by providing all needed components in one package. The solution will help you reduce the complexity of Catena-X by:
- One simple interface for all your data
Connect with your partners easily through a single, standardized access point - Everything you need – ready to use
Get a complete, turnkey solution without the hassle of complex setup or integration - Secure, reliable data – always available
Your data is stored safely and can be accessed anytime, with high availability and strong protection
The architecture consists of three mandatory software components, as defined by the Catena-X standard. These components must be hosted and are essential for enabling interoperability and data exchange within the ecosystem:
- DTR – Digital Twin Registry
Acts like a phone book for Digital Twins: it registers Digital Twins and makes them discoverable. It stores metadata of the product and manages access rights for accessing metadata. - SMR – Submodel Repository
Based on the standard for Digital Twins defined by the IDTA – Asset Administration Shell (AAS) framework – the SMR serves as the storage location for Digital Twin data, making it available for retrieval. - EDC – Eclipse Dataspace Connector
Facilitates secure and controlled data exchange within the Catena-X Data Space.
All components are designed to seamlessly communicate with each other, ensuring smooth integration and collaboration across the entire data infrastructure.
A vehicle manufacturer tracks every component of a vehicle – beginning from the steel used in the chassis to the software in control units. If an issue is detected i.e. in a batch of airbags, the manufacturer can trace exactly which vehicles contain those affected airbags and trigger targeted recalls only for the affected vehicles.
A supplier produces a component and ships it to the OEM. While the part is already on its way, an issue in the production process is discovered — the part may be defective.Bundle Packages
Improve your way of handling your data by choosing one of our bundle packages.
Start your Traceability journey today!
Improve your way of handling your data by choosing our traceability solution.
Max Mäffert
IT Consultant
On sovity
sovity enables companies to create values with their data without comprimising data sovereignty. As a technology pioneer, we provide our knowledge for you to leverage data spaces at lowest effort and in fastest time.
