Purchase Order
 (PO) 

A purchase order is a commercial document and first official offer issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities, and agreed prices for products and services. It is used to control the purchasing of products and services from external suppliers

Scope Certificate (SC) 

A scope certificate is a document issued by a certification body that verifies that a facility complies with a given standard and satisfied all the criteria to manufacture products certified to that standard. A SC has a certain validity period and will have to be renewed with an audit of the facility.

Transaction Certificate
 (TC) 

A transaction certificate is a document issued by a certification body that verifies that the goods being shipped from one organization to the next are conform to a given standard. The TC represents a transaction between different suppliers and applies to a specific shipment, shipped at a specific date. A facility can only ship materials covered by a TC is the facility itself has a valid SC.

Certification Body 

A certification body is an organization that has been accredited to provide an assessment based around a specific standard. The certification body will award a certificate to the organization to show that they comply once they have achieved the requirements set out in the standard. 

Examples: Control Union, EcoCert, SGS, and so on

Standards Body 

A standards body is an organization in public or private sector, that proposes, monitors, and develops voluntary standards. Examples: ISO, Textile Exchange, GOTS, and so on

Chain of Custody (CoC) 

According to WWF, the Chain of Custody is “the custodial sequence that occurs as ownership or control of the material supply is transferred from one custodian to another in the supply chain”. It is all the evidence produced along the supply chain when a good changes ownership.

Document-based Chain of Custody  

The document-based chain of custody is composed of successive certification documents issued by certification bodies (like SCs and TCs). It is used as a proof of the material integrity and a source of truth for CMC.

Digital Chain of Custody  

The digital chain of custody is the continuation of the document-based chain of custody when the latter is not built until the finished good. It relies on the information from the certificates and is composed of 3 types of transactions (Inbound, Production and Outbound) under which a series of validations are made to ensure that the material integrity is preserved. It is the second step of the CMC solution.

Commissioning  

Commissioning is the first step of the CMC solution; it represents the transition between the Document-based and the Digital Chain of Custody. In this step, the last Transaction Certificate is uploaded on the TrusTrace platform. It is then digitized meaning that its most important fields are extracted automatically which allows validations to occur.

PO Reconciliation 

PO reconciliation is the last step of the CMC solution; it is when all the information of the chain of custody (document-based or digital) is re-conciliated with the PO from the brand. Once reconciliation happens, a brand has all the necessary evidence to prove material claims on the products issued from this PO. PO reconciliation has two components: PO Fulfilment and PO Compliance.

PO Fulfilment 

A standards body is an organization in public or private sector, that proposes, monitors, and develops voluntary standards. 

Examples: ISO, Textile Exchange, GOTS…

PO Compliance 

According to WWF, the chain of custody is “the custodial sequence that occurs as ownership or control of the material supply is transferred from one custodian to another in the supply chain”. It is all the evidence produced along the supply chain when a good changes ownership.

Transaction

A transaction is what is used in the CMC system to represent the physical movement of the material. This concept is the first level of abstraction of the supply chain in the platform. Successive transactions in TrusTrace platform will form a Digital Chain of Custody. There are 3 types of transaction: Inbound, Production and Outbound. 

Inbound Transaction

The Inbound transaction represents, in the TrusTrace system, the material received by a supplier from its supplier. 

Production Transaction 

The Production transaction represents, in the TrusTrace system, the manufacturing stage, when the material undergoes a transformation. For example, from fibre to yarn, yarn to fabric, fabric to garment.  

Outbound Transaction

The outbound transaction represents, in the TrusTrace system, the material shipped by a supplier to its buyer (the next supplier). 

Validation

A validation is a check done automatically on the platform to verify the consistency between two sets of data. This concerns information like quantities, material compositions, facility addresses etc. The validations are what ensure that the certified material integrity is preserved along the last steps of the supply chain. They are what give the credibility to the digital chain of custody. 

Master Data

Master data is all the data coming from the brand systems. It can be data on suppliers, styles, materials, POs etc. Enterprise brands have IT systems to store and manage this data. The TrusTrace platform can be connected to these systems through APIs to collect the data directly. 

Certificate Data

Certificate data is all the data points coming from the certificates (TCs and SCs mainly) from the Document-based CoC. Certificate data refers to the fields extracted during digitization (can be at Commissioning for TCs but also at onboarding of suppliers for SCs). These data points are used to conduct validations. 

Manually Recorded data 

Manually recorded data is all the data that the suppliers input on the platform while recording production and outbound transactions in the digital chain of custody. It represents the real journey of the material.