Transparency and consistency of manufacturing processes via blockchain could bring production quality to the next level

The quality is paramount in many cases but especially when we deal with the manufacturing of chemical products. The engineers of Airalab tested their Robonomics protocol to ensure safe production processes of a chemical product with chlorine dioxide, a basic active ingredient.

High concentration of this compound may be very harmful for health. If the concentration is substandard, the chemical product is of no use. So, the monitoring of this parameter is critical. The monitoring in the most transparent way and in real time could be very important and add value to the company as the customers could be sure that data are not compromised. The blockchain might help to ensure that fake results are non-existent.

The trustworth monitoring system could be built on Robonomics protocol. In a pilot project in order to solve this task, a self-sufficient cyberphysical system was designed that checks a concentration of chlorine dioxide in a random package from the batch. A spectrograph is used for verification. The verification was conducted manually by Airalab engineers during the tests, but this process could be automated with the help of industrial manipulator.

The cyberphysical system is connected to Robonomics network. It acts as an independent economic agent, the agent that could start providing services upon payment, delivering in this case a single service to the market, namely, quality assurance.

It operates in the following way:

⦁ The service request is sent via a web-site

⦁ The system creates a corresponding offer

⦁ Robonomics network issues a contract

⦁ The contract is being executed

⦁ The contract is done

⦁ The customer receives a QR code with a link to the verification results

Below you may see the kinds of messages that the CPS and the robonomics stack exchange:

The work starts upon receiving the service request or “task” message. In our case a tester can see that the contract has been launched. The tester takes a package, checks concentration of chlorine dioxide and saves results to a file. When it’s received, a file is published on IPFS. The file’s hash and the address of the contract are saved in the local database to enable quick access to information. Finally, a message that contract is fulfilled is sent. If we remove the tester from the algorithm, the system becomes incorruptible.

This system of quality assurance has in fact universal architecture. In order to implement such system in some other production process, the only thing to be changed is a working algorithm that starts upon a receipt of “task” message.