Discovery

A manufacturer is drowning in overlapping audits and customer data requests across dozens of platforms. This use case shows how they publish their facility and product data once, then make it discoverable and verifiable from many starting points using identity resolvers.

At a glance

Specifications touched

• Digital Facility Record (DFR)
• Digital Product Passport (DPP)
• Digital Identity Anchor (DIA)
• Identity Resolver (IDR)
• Digital Conformity Credential (DCC)

Roles

• Facility operator (the manufacturer) — a company with seven factories. Owns its identity, issues its own DFRs and DPPs, and decides where they are hosted and which registers point at them.
• UNTP software provider — a conformant software vendor that helps the manufacturer issue its DFR (signed with the manufacturer's own DID) and hosts it, returning a resolver endpoint. The manufacturer is not locked in: it could host the record anywhere or move it later.
• Registers and resolvers (a facility register, a product identifier registry, a mapping service such as Google) — each stores a pointer to the manufacturer's data. None of them host the data, and any number can point at the same DFR.
• Auditors and conformity schemes (social compliance audit platforms, a sustainability ratings platform, a responsible-minerals scheme, a quality certifier) — issue or verify the conformity claims that the manufacturer references in its DFR.
• Business register / DIA issuer (a national business register) — issued the manufacturer a verifiable business identity as a UNTP DIA credential, which anchors the manufacturer's DID.
• Data consumers (customers, regulators) — want facility-level or product-level data and serve themselves from whichever starting point they already know.

Sample credentials

Scenario glue (illustrative, non-normative):

• Facility resolver link-set — one factory's resolver response, with a dfr link and an idr redirect to the product resolver.
• Product resolver link-set — one product's resolver response, with a dpp link.

Canonical credentials the story points at (from the normative sample set):

• Digital Facility Record
• Digital Product Passport
• Digital Identity Anchor

The problem

The manufacturer operates seven factories. Factory X is registered in a facility register, is a tier 2 supplier in a large buyer's responsible-sourcing programme, and makes products sold to businesses and consumers, so the manufacturer also holds membership of a product identifier registry and issues products with global product identifiers. Every facility has a verified entry on a mapping service (for example a Google Place ID). The manufacturer already runs one social compliance audit published to an audit-sharing platform and a second on another platform, and it buys inputs from a smelter audited under a responsible-minerals scheme.

The manufacturer is tired of overlapping audits, and the pressure is growing. Customers now want facility-level and product-level data that goes beyond the social compliance audits, and the biggest single focus is emissions and product carbon footprint. That data is not part of the social audits, so different customers are asking for similar information on dozens of platforms, on sustainability ratings services, and on bespoke questionnaires. Some are asking for a "dataspace" wired into the manufacturer's internal systems to issue standardised product carbon footprint messages. A few customers are now asking for a Digital Facility Record and for SKU-level Digital Product Passports. It is overwhelming.

Amid a cacophony of "use my platform and the pain goes away" pitches, one idea makes sense to the manufacturer: all of those information demands are just different views over the same facility data and product data. The way forward is to publish that data once, then make it easy to discover and verify. The manufacturer gets started.

Stage 1: Issue and host the DFR

The manufacturer engages a UNTP-conformant software provider to help it issue a Digital Facility Record. Two things matter about this choice: the manufacturer issues the DFR under its own identity, and it is not locked in, because it can host the record anywhere and move it later.

The first requirement is a DID: the manufacturer's own identity and key pair, used to sign its DFRs and any other credential. The manufacturer already has one, because its national business register set it up when it issued a verifiable business identity as a UNTP DIA credential. The manufacturer proves control of that DID to the software provider with a challenge and response from its wallet.

The provider's form prompts for every conformity claim the manufacturer wants to include: the two social compliance results, the emissions data verified through a sustainability ratings platform, and general quality management certification. Each claim is a conformity credential evidenced by a different scheme, and they all sit inside the one DFR. The DFR also has a section about upstream supply, where the manufacturer declares its smelter supplier and includes the identifier issued to that smelter by the responsible-minerals scheme.

The manufacturer issues the DFR, signed with its own DID, and the provider hosts it. The provider returns a URL for the manufacturer's identity resolver endpoint: a link that returns a list of credentials, currently holding just the DFR.

Two ideas do the heavy lifting here. The facility owns and issues its own DFR, and a single DFR can carry claims evidenced by many different audit schemes. The software provider is a convenience, not an owner of the data.

Stage 2: Make it discoverable from anywhere

The DFR now sits at a stable URL. To make it discoverable, the manufacturer registers that link in every register its customers already use. It does this equally across registers: none of them host the DFR, they each just point at it.

• Facility register. The manufacturer claims its facility entries, using its DIA for identity integrity, and adds a link from each facility to its resolver endpoint.
• Product identifier registry. The manufacturer holds a global location identifier, and registers the same link against it. Anyone querying the registry for that location identifier is directed to the manufacturer's DFR.
• Mapping service. Every facility has an entry on a mapping service such as Google. The manufacturer adds a link from each map pin to its resolver endpoint, so anyone who finds a facility on the map can reach its credentials.

Any number of registers can point at the same DFR, and it is the facility's job to add those links wherever it wants visibility. Because the DFR is signed by the manufacturer's DID, a consumer can verify it no matter which register led them to it.

Stage 3: Product-level setup

Digital Product Passports are different from DFRs: they are high volume. The manufacturer's production management system (PMS) is itself a UNTP software provider, so it issues DPPs straight out of the PMS and hosts them.

To make the DPPs discoverable, the manufacturer authorises the PMS to update the product registry's link resolver automatically for each product identifier it manufactures. The DPP problem is now largely automated, as long as the manufacturer keeps good data in its PMS.

Some queries that arrive at the manufacturer's facility resolver also want product-level data. Rather than list every DPP there, the manufacturer adds a single link on its facility resolver for product-related queries that redirects to the product registry. This is a resolver pointing at another resolver, and it is set to become a very common pattern.

Outcome

• The manufacturer maintains its DFRs in one place (hosted by its software provider), and they are discoverable via the facility register ID, the location identifier, and even map pins.
• The manufacturer automates DPP generation from its business software, and the DPPs are discoverable from multiple starting points.
• Customers who want facility-level information serve themselves, starting from whichever identifier they already know.
• Customers who want product-level information just scan the barcode on the box.
• The manufacturer gets back to the business of making quality products.

Specifications in play

• Digital Identity Anchor — the DIA from the business register anchors the manufacturer's DID, so it can issue its DFR under its own identity and claim its facility entries in each register with integrity.
• Digital Facility Record — the single facility record that carries conformity claims from many schemes and declares upstream supply.
• Digital Conformity Credential — each audit result (social compliance, emissions, quality) referenced inside the DFR.
• Digital Product Passport — high-volume, per-product passports issued from the manufacturer's production management system.
• Identity Resolver — the facility and product resolvers that let many identifiers point at the same data, including one resolver redirecting to another.