EC3

What is EC3?

Our EC3 (Enterprise Collaborative Commerce Cloud) is a blockchain-based platform that provides an end-to-end solution for supply chains.

What does it do?

EC3 links procurement and contract management, financing arrangements, direct enterprise control of corporate payments and inventory tracking in a buildable manner. The platform allows for the secure sharing of data across organizations in a blockchain network. At the same time, EC3 offers the selective obfuscation of sensitive data, all the way down to the field level. These two characteristics form the basis of a virtually frictionless supply chain ecosystem in which enterprises are able to share information and documents with one another for optimal visibility and liquidity.

How does it do it?

Each organization on the blockchain network is given its own CRP (Collaborative Resource Planning) system with multiple services. Because management of a blockchain is decentralized, members of supply chain ecosystems can easily onboard onto one or multiple blockchains using a CRP and take advantage of the functionality across these networks.

EC3: Three Core Application Technologies

To ensure full end-to-end coverage of supply chain operations, we equipped our platform with our Popcodes traceability and Brackets smart contracts technologies, which can be deployed in applications and application modules fitted to specific use cases. Based on just these two core products, EC3 is able to

  • manage the entire procure-to-pay contract cycle
  • make corporate payments easier by giving enterprises–not banks–control of the process
  • replace Letters of Credit with the DLPC
  • scale Inventory Control & Finance (ICF) across the production process in the deep tier
  • establish a market for credit insurance and marine/cargo insurance
  • perform a real-time audit of supply chain transactions
  • track the full provenance of goods and velocity of the production and distribution process
  • facilitate programmatic buying and collaborative planning among supply chain partners and more.

The result is greater visibility and liquidity across the supply chain.

To support data privacy needs across the network, Skuchain has Zero Knowledge Collaboration® technology that implements sophisticated access controls directly on the blockchain ledger.

What does it take to begin using EC3?

  1. The Blockchain orderer and network
  2. Node on the organization, with endorsement policy privileges
  3. Node on the Blockchain with no endorsement policy privileges
  4. Clients using the app in a SaaS manner
  5. The anchor organization
  6. A Collaborative Resource Planning (CRP) node
  7. EC3 Connector integrates and parses EDI documents from a CRP Server, or an existing ERP

Each EC3 network starts with one identity server for access controls and one HyperLedger Fabric orderer with multiple peers, channels and organizations.

EC3 bridges cutting-edge blockchain technology with current enterprise IT realities for seamless adoption of our solutions across a supply chain. On the application level, we are able to take in data from outside systems, including existing ERPs, legacy industrial scanners, standalone third party supply chain management tools and even Excel spreadsheets. Blockchain-specific infrastructure needs, such as bootstrapping a network and adding policies, organizations and customized smart contracts are baked into our application stack.

Instead of having to separately choose a cloud environment, an underlying blockchain protocol and a set of applications, enterprises have access to an integrated offering of all three in the applications themselves. This significantly reduces the complexity of adoption for buyers and enables suppliers to onboard with one click.

EC3 was built on top of Hyperledger Fabric, the most robust protocol for enterprise blockchains. However, the platform was designed to be blockchain agnostic and has been ported onto Ethereum and Corda.

How can I easily onboard my partners?

1. Multi-tenancy or node

Partner has a multi-tenant account or a node on EC3 Customer’s private network.

Upgrade Options

2. Own Private network

Partner sets up their own private network and can onboard their existing partners to that network.

3. Connect to EC3 Private Consortium or Third Party Public Network

Partner establishes a connection to a wider private network run by Skuchain or a public network and can exchange documents with other partners on the network.

Either or both of these upgrades are possible from a multi-tenancy or node.

How do I become interoperable with another Hyperledger Fabric Network?

  1. Buyer 1 native network
  2. Buyer 2 native network
  3. Buyer 1 is a node on both networks
  4. Buyer 1 and Buyer 2 share a channel on Buyer 2’s network

How do I expand my network or participate on other networks?

  1. Buyer 1’s native network allows them to use a Blockchain Peer gateway to interoperate and become nodes on other networks.

Can I build my own applications and features on EC3?

Yes! Skuchain has a developer portal that allows developers and business analysts to customize features and build new applications on top of EC3.

Take a look at our architecture diagram below and let us know at info@skuchain.com where you’d like to build!

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