Federated Co-operatives Limited, or FCL, one of Canada’s 50-largest companies, has partnered with blockchain-based supply chain middleware platform, Morpheus.Network.

FCL plans to integrate distributed ledger technology, or DLT, based tracking. This will be deployed across its diverse supply chain, encompassing 1,400 businesses across Western Canada and employs over 23,000 workers.

Major Canadian co-operative embraces blockchain

The firms have inked a three-year deal that will see Morpheus.Network provide optical character recognition, machine learning, and blockchain technologies to streamline FCL’s complex supply chain.

FCL is a wholesaling, manufacturing, marketing, and administrative co-operative opened by more than 170 independent retail associations. The entity operates primarily across four sectors; agriculture, food, energy, and home and building solutions — including bars, convenience stores, agricultural centers, and propane plants among other businesses.

The co-operative generated $9.2 billion during 2019.

Compliance processes automated through DLT

Morpheus’ system will provide automated tracking and compliance management solutions that will supplant FCL’s existing manual processes:

“This system replaces a largely manual process where thousands of regulatory certification and documents from more than 150 suppliers are collected and managed by FCL which all need to be scanned, validated, processed and tracked.”

FCL’s Supply Chain Manager, Raymond Gareau, highlighted the increased efficiency “supplier document management and validation processes” resulting from the DLT integration, adding:

“Next up we are looking at the overall visibility of our supply chain from suppliers to FCL warehouses”

BMW to roll out proprietary DLT supply chain platform

At the end of March, BMW announced that it will roll out its blockchain-based supply chain solution among 10 suppliers during 2020.

The platform, PartChain, was piloted during 2019 at two of BMW’s 31 plants and three locations of its supplier, Automotive Lightning.

BMW will also provide the platform to members of its Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative — which was co-founded by car manufacturers BMW, GM, Ford, and Renault, alongside tech firms Bosch, Hyperledger, IBM, and Iota.