Bosch Autotrace: Delivering green, lean, transparent supply chains

The automotive supply chain has always been complicated owing to the sheer volume of components and technology that go into creating automotive products. The complexity, lack of data control and the lack of unified IT systems have kept supply chain visibility very limited. Today, the global pivot of the automotive industry to more sustainable models in both fuel technology and greener operations has made the supply chain even more difficult to manage. The intricacies involved in global dependencies and interconnectedness necessitates the need for the best of technology to help us solve this massive task of reinventing the automotive supply chain for the new world.

With our expertise and experience in the automotive segment combined with the adoption of the most advanced technologies available today, Bosch has developed an intelligent and comprehensive solution for the automotive supply chain, the Bosch Autotrace.

Bosch Autotrace enables end-to-end supply chain transparency and sustainability through tracking and monitoring critical aspects of the supply chain such as carbon emissions, materials of high concern, closed-loop manufacturing and distribution, and the authenticity of components. It also has an in-built incentivization mechanism to increase the adoption of circular economy practices throughout the automotive supply chain.

Circular Economy

Nowadays, consumers are increasingly choosing products that only employ sustainable production and distribution methods. Therefore, Bosch Autotrace is built to enable manufacturers to easily implement closed-loop systems which can bring multiple stakeholders onto a single platform. The track and trace function helps track essential information about manufacturing components throughout the lifecycle so that stakeholders can easily access the entire journey of the product from its origin. In addition, ?the in-built recyclability and refurbish-ability indexes assist in determining the component's residual value and ?the tokenised incentivisation mechanism adds to the ability of organisations to implement robust circular ?economy processes.

Carbon Emissions Tracking

Consumers, regulators, investors, and other stakeholders are increasingly interested in a company's carbon footprint, particularly in the manufacturing industry. However, tracking and documenting carbon emissions across the supply chain requires joint efforts by all the stakeholders and this is where Bosch Autotrace with its forward traceability capabilities can provide a transparent and immutable approach to track the carbon footprint of the whole supply chain in near-real-time, removing the requirement for reconciliations.

Anti-Counterfeiting

Automobile part counterfeiting is a well-known issue that has a direct influence on customer safety and company income. Manufacturers across the world have always struggled to create leak-proof processes that can help eliminate counterfeits from destroying their reputation and revenue in the market. Bosch Autotrace uses a Natural Fingerprinting (NFP) feature to enable unique identification, and therefore, enable complete tracking of the products across the supply chain to aid the fight ?against counterfeits.

Material Composition Tracking

Several rules exist across the globe, requiring firms that use, manufacture, or process certain hazardous compounds, such as 3TG or SVHC, to manage and dispose of them in regulated methods. Bosch Autotrace enables organisations to keep ahead of all compliance regulations through granular surveillance of items of concern, ensuring they are processed or handled in the prescribed methods along the supply chain. This in turn enables organisations to increase efficiency and create a transparent reporting trail in audits and also in enabling the creation of robust processes to ensure the reduction of substances of concern in the supply chain.