CX-0125 Traceability Use Case v2.1.0
ABSTRACT
This standard is used to define the basic rules to participate in the Traceability Use Case.
The use case is based on the industry core and uses the digital twins and aspect models of the industry core. Furthermore it includes use case-specific aspect models (e.g. TractionBatteryCode) that go beyond the industry core and are used to make various entities in the network, such as parts, traceable.
In addition, this document contains necessary standards for applications to send standardized notifications to exchange Quality Investigations, Quality Alerts and Block Informations in Catena-X. Quality Investigations refer to sending standardised notifications to suppliers (top-down) while Quality Alerts and Block Informations refer to sending notifications to customers (bottom-up). Those notifications will enable the industry to exchange upon quality issues and based on that to actively initiate immediate measures in a more standardised, integrated, accelerated and precise manner. This document describes the minimal requirements of the notification processes a traceability application or application stack needs to fulfill for being interoperable within the Catena-X platform as well as the specific API endpoints and their integration into IDSA conform data assets.
FOR WHOM IS THE STANDARD DESIGNED
This standard is designed for everybody who wants to participate in the traceability use case.
The following features are provided:
- Traceability of products (e.g. vehicles), parts and material (physical assets)
- Notification of quality issues within the value chain
- Notification of block information to actively initiate an immediate measure within the value chain
COMPARISON WITH THE PREVIOUS VERSION OF THE STANDARD
- Enhanced existing content of Section ABSTRACT, Section FOR WHOM IS THE STANDARD DESIGNED, Section 1.1, Section 1.2 with new information regarding block informations in context with the existing Quality Investigations and Quality Alerts.
- Renamed Section 2.1 title from Quality Notifications and Data Exchange to Data Exchange for Quality and Block Notifications and adapted existing content with additional information.
- Adapted existing content of Section 2.1.3 with bug fixes and additional information for the new Block Notification function.
- Added new Section 4.2. to describe the new Block Notification API.
- Added new Section 5.2. to describe the new Block Notification process.
Note: This release (25.03) contains minor changes!
1 INTRODUCTION
This document summarizes all standards to be supported by a network participants IT infrastructure to participate for the Use Case Traceability. This involves protocols, semantic models and platform capabilities to be used.
1.1 AUDIENCE & SCOPE
This section is non-normative
This document is targeting subsets of the following roles:
- Data Provider (only for notifications) / Consumer
- Business Application Provider
- Enablement Service Provider
Furthermore, this standard applies to Traceability Applications or Application stacks and participants that
- want to provide (only for notifications) and/or consume data
- want to exchange quality issues and block informations data leveraging Traceability solutions (not to be a general solution pattern for notifications across various use cases (api, process), only for sending, receiving and updating of quality notifications or block notifications in a traceability context)
Note: Fulfilling a use-case standard by a data provider / consumer can be done in two ways:
- Purchase a certified app for the use-case. In this case the data provider / consumer does not need to prove conformity again and
- Data Provisioning / Consumption without a certified app for the use-case.
1.2 CONTEXT AND ARCHITECTURE FIT
This section is non-normative
Traceability of parts and materials is crucial in the automotive industry to enable e.g. quality management and circular economy. So, the aim of the Use Case Traceability is to trace physical parts and materials across the entire value creation chain to enable data driven use cases over all n-tier levels without compromising data sovereignty.
In order to create this transparency on physical assets, relevant data must be made available by all participants of a value chain. This process is described in the standard CX - 0127 INDUSTRY CORE: PART INSTANCE 2.0.0. This standard enables data and app providers to deliver solutions for building data chains for serialized parts or batches. This is achieved via the standardized creation of digital twins of vehicles, parts and materials as well as the logical linking to their sub-components (Bill of Material, BoM). The default visibility of digital twins and their respective semantic models follows the one-up/one-down principle.
By tracking and tracing back the sourcing of serialized parts or batches, manufactures can quickly identify the source of any quality issue and take corrective actions to address them. Comprehensive traceability across the value creation network enables the automotive and further industries to quickly respond to any quality issues and based on that to actively initiate immediate measures in their supply chain. Standardized Quality Investigations, Quality Alerts and Block Informations based on Part Instance digital twins may be used for this purpose within the Catena-X network.
The following figure provides an overview of the architecture of all components involved in relation to quality and block notifications.
Figure 1: Architecture Overview
1.3 CONFORMANCE AND PROOF OF CONFORMITY
This section is non-normative
Sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.
The key words MAY, MUST, MUST NOT, OPTIONAL, RECOMMENDED, REQUIRED, SHOULD and SHOULD NOT in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
All participants* and their solutions will need to prove, that they are conform with the Catena-X standards. To validate that the standards are applied correctly, Catena-X employs Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs). Please refer to: https://catena-x.net/en/catena-x-introduce-implement/certification for the process of conformity assessment and certification.
Since this document describes a set of standards to be fulfilled, participants MUST fulfill all mentioned standards and the respective conformity assessment criteria in addition to the specific criteria mentioned in this document.
The specific criteria defined in this document are describing the usage of the central tools as well as common tools described in the linked standardization documents and therefore compliance SHOULD BE checked with the tools provided for these components.
The proof of conformity for a single semantic model is done according to the general rules for proving the conformity of data provided to a semantic model or the ability to consume the corresponding data.
In terms of conformity the openAPI specification of the application or endpoints being exposed via the Tractus-X EDC or any other CX-0018 compliant connector MUST be checked against the standardized openAPI specification.
Examples of data assets and contract offer structure in the Tractus-X EDC or any other CX-0018 compliant connector MUST correspond to the described structure.
The versions of the standardization documents valid for this standard are mentioned in sections where the standalone standards, normative references and non-normative references are listed. The valid versions are not specifically mentioned in the body text.
*Disclaimer: The operating model released by the Catena-X association will define the roadmap, content and scope for the certification process. This will include the roles, certification and further assessment procedures as well as the rollout phases.
1.4 EXAMPLES
Examples for data models: See according subsection 3 Aspect Models.
Examples for APIs: See according subsection 4 APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACES
1.5 TERMINOLOGY
This section is non-normative
Application Programming Interface (API): An API is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other.
Aspect Model: A formal, machine-readable semantic description (expressed with RDF/turtle) of data accessible from an aspect.
Note 1 to entry: An Aspect Model must adhere to the Semantic Aspect Meta Model (SAMM), i.e., it utilizes elements and relations defined in the Semantic Aspect Meta Model and is compliant to the validity rules defined by the Semantic Aspect Meta Model.
Note 2 to entry: Aspect Models are logical data models which can be used to detail a conceptual model in order to describe the semantics of runtime data related to a concept. Further, elements of an Aspect model can/should refer to terms of a standardized Business Glossary (if existing).
[Source: Catena-X, CX-0002, note 3 removed]
Asset: An Asset describes on Data Provider side the data set which will be shared or can be consumed by a Data Consumer.
Asset Administration Shell (AAS): The AAS is a digital representation of an asset. It is a form of a digital twin.
Bill of Material (BoM): A bill of material resembles the structure of a product. It is a list of all raw materials, sub-assemblies and sub-components that are needed to manufacture the end procuct. At Catena-X Traceability we consider more than one single BoM. The BoM changes during the lifecyle and therefore, we are talking about different BoMs in different lifecycles.
Business Partner Number (BPN): A BPN is the unique identifier of a partner within Catena-X.
Tractus-X Eclipse Dataspace Connector (Tractus-X EDC): The Tractus-X EDC is a reference implementation for a connector conformant to CX-0018 currently acting as a de-facto standard and/or reference Implementation within Catena-X. When mentioning the Tractus-X EDC in this standard, any other CX-0018 conformant connector is also a valid option.
HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-layer protocol for transmitting hypermedia documents, such as HTML. It was designed for communication between web browsers and web servers, but it can also be used for other purposes.
International Data Space Association (IDSA): The IDSA is on a mission to create the future of the global, digital economy with International Data Spaces (IDS), a secure, sovereign system of data sharing in which all participants can realize the full value of their data.
International Data Space (IDS): The International Data Space enables new "smart services" and innovative business processes to work across companies and industries while ensuring that the self-determined control of data use (data sovereignty) remains in the hands of data providers.
IDSA Protocol: The IDSA Protocol being used for data exchange in an International Dataspace. This includes contract negotiation.
Part Instance: A part instance is a physically produced instance (e.g. serialized part, batch, just-in-sequence-part) of a part type.
Serialized part: Instance of a part, where the particular instance can be uniquely identified by means of a serial number, a similar identifier (e.g. VAN) or a combination of multiple identifiers (e.g. combination of manufacturer, date and number).
Subcomponent: A Subcomponent is a separate product that can be assembled into a customer product.
UML: The unified modeling language (UML) is a general-purpose visual modeling language that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system. UML provides a standard notation for many types of diagrams which can be roughly divided into three main groups: behavior diagrams, interaction diagrams, and structure diagrams.
Vehicle Anonymised Number (VAN): A number mapped 1:1 to VIN, but pseudonomised.
Vehicle Identification Number (VIN): The VIN number is a 17-character code assigned by the manufacturer to every vehicle, providing specific information about its make, model, year of manufacture, and other key features. It is a unique identifier that allows the vehicle to be easily tracked and identified throughout its lifespan. Additional terminology used in this standard can be looked up in the glossary on the association homepage.
2 RELEVANT PARTS OF THE STANDARD FOR SPECIFIC USE CASES
This section is normative
2.1 "DATA EXCHANGE FOR QUALITY AND BLOCK NOTIFICATIONS"
This chapter describes and collects necessary standards for applications that enable the standardized exchange of Notifications for Quality Alerts, Quality Investigations and Block Informations in Catena-X. While Quality Investigations refer to sending standardised notifications to suppliers (top-down), Quality Alerts and Block Information refer to sending notifications to customers (bottom-up). Those notifications will enable the industry to exchange upon quality issues and based on that to actively initiate immediate measures in a more standardised, integrated, accelerated and precise manner.
It is tightly bound to the Industry Core, as quality issues and block information should reference batches and/or serialized part instances as described in the standard CX - 0127 INDUSTRY CORE: PART INSTANCE.
The standards for Traceability and Industry Core: Part Instance serve as an enabler for the standardized exchange of quality issues or block informations as possibly immediate measure by introducing network-wide unique identifiers for serialized parts or batches. Its linked standards are to be used in order to be interoperable.
2.1.1 LIST OF STANDALONE STANDARDS
This section is normative
To participate in Notifications, the following single standards MUST be fulfilled by all participants for which the standard is relevant:
- CX-0001 EDC DISCOVERY API 1.0.2
- CX-0002 DIGITAL TWINS IN CATENA-X 2.2.0
- CX-0018 DATASPACE CONNECTIVITY 3.0.0
- CX-0127 INDUSTRY CORE: PART INSTANCE 2.0.0
2.1.2 DATA REQUIRED
A digital twin MAY be created for serialized part or batch of materials produced by the manufacturer. The digital twin MUST be provisioned via an Asset Administration Shell as per CX-0002 and registered in a decentral Digital Twin Registry of the data provider (or the decentral Digital Twin Registry host of the manufacturer) as described in CX-0002.
The IDS protocol as described in CX-0018 MUST be followed in the data exchange.
2.1.3 ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
As the IDS protocol is being used, data MUST NOT be transferred before a corresponding contract negotiation has been successfully passed by the participants of the data exchange and a valid contract is present as described in CX-0018.
Data Exchange for Quality Notifications
The described Quality Notification Process and especially status schema MUST be supported.
The described Quality Notification API MUST be provisioned in order to receive Quality Alerts or Quality Investigation. The required data offers for Quality Alerts and Quality Investigations MUST be created and linked to the described endpoints of the Quality Notification API.
Data Exchange for Block Notifications
The described Block Notification Process and especially status schema MAY be supported.
The described Block Notification API MAY be provisioned in order to receive and update Block Informations. The required data offers for Block Informations MUST be created and linked to the described endpoints of the Block Notification API in case Block Notifications will be provided.
Conventions for Use Case Policy in context data exchange
In alignment with our commitment to data sovereignty, a specific framework governing the utilization of data within the Catena-X use cases has been outlined. A set of specific policies on data offering and data usage level detail the conditions under which data may be accessed, shared, and used, ensuring compliance with legal standards.
For a comprehensive understanding of the rights, restrictions, and obligations associated with data usage in the Catena-X ecosystem, we refer users to
- the detailed ODRL policy repository. This document provides in-depth explanations of the terms and conditions applied to data access and utilization, ensuring that all engagement with our data is conducted responsibly and in accordance with established guidelines.
- the ODRL schema template. This defines how policies used for data sharing/usage should get defined. Those schemas MUST be followed when providing services or apps for data sharing/consuming.
Additional Details regarding Access Policies
A Data Provider may tie certain access authorizations ("Access Policies") to its data offers for members of Catena-X and one or several Data Consumers. By limiting access to certain Participants, Data Provider maintains control over its anti-trust obligations when sharing certain data. In particular, Data Provider may apply Access Policies to restrict access to a particular data offer for only one Participant identified by a specific business partner number:
- Membership
- BPNL
Additional Details regarding Usage Policies
In the context of data usage policies (“Usage Policies”), Participants and related services MUST use the following policy rules:
- Use Case Framework (“FrameworkAgreement”)
- at least one use case purpose (“UsagePurpose”) from the above mentioned ODRL policy repository.
Additionally, respective usage policies MAY include the following policy rule:
- Reference Contract (“ContractReference”).
Details on namespaces and ODRL policy rule values to be used for the above-mentioned types are provided via the ODRL policy repository.
Versioning
The Aspect Models that are deployed as Digital Twins MUST be published in dcat:Dataset (http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#) in the property that holds the full URN of the Aspect Model https://admin-shell.io/aas/3/0/HasSemantics/semanticId. Versions are explicitly contained in the URN. The API versions MUST be published in the property https://w3id.org/catenax/ontology/common#version as version X.Y in dcat:Dataset (http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#). Note: Data Assets differentiated only by major version MUST be offered in parallel. The current standard and API versions mark the start of Life Cycle Management in Catena-X operations. Previous versions are dismissed.
3 ASPECT MODELS
This section is normative
An overview of the relevant aspect models of this standard.
- TractionBatteryCode
If a data provider decides to provide data on aspect models of this standard they MUST provide the data conformant to the semantic models specified in this document.
Data consumers and data provider MUST comply with the license of the semantic models.
The submodel data MUST be transferred using the IDS Protocol as described in CX-0018. The Tractus-X EDC as a reference implementation is RECOMMENDED to be used as a connector conformant to CX-0018.
Data providers MUST provide data as part of a digital twin of the asset for serialized parts conformant to CX–0002. The JSON Payloads of data providers MUST be conformant to the JSON Schemas as specified in this document.
The unique identifier of the semantic model specified in this document MUST be used by the data provider to define the semantics of the data being transferred.