SCDx should connect organizations and their existing systems through a common exchange foundation. Each participant remains responsible for the facts it issues and the access it authorizes. Shared definitions and trust rules allow a carrier, terminal, warehouse, buyer, or regulator to interpret information consistently without requiring them to replace their internal software.
The Digital Supply Chain Lab at Simon Fraser University drives development of the SCDx exchange standard and its documentation website. The proposed national governance structure, network operator, and participant responsibilities require agreement before operational deployment.
This is a proposed federated design. The Python prototype uses one local exchange service and database to test selected rules. It does not implement a distributed production network.
Participants and connections
Participants can include suppliers, producers, manufacturers, buyers, freight forwarders, carriers, ports, terminals, warehouses, customs brokers, and regulators. Participation does not grant general visibility into the network. Each exchange needs a legitimate relationship and a defined purpose.
Connections should use supported interfaces from enterprise, transport, warehouse, and government systems. Existing EDI should be mapped where it works. Smaller organizations need a usable interface and assistance that do not create another place to retype the same information.
An integration with a government system requires its actual access arrangements, supported transaction profile, testing, and acknowledgement semantics. An SCDx delivery receipt is not a government decision.
Shared coordination services
The proposed coordination layer contains a verified organization and endpoint directory, a profile and code-list registry, conformance tools, and rules for delegated access. The network also needs service monitoring and an agreed minimum audit record.
Business records should remain at their agreed authoritative sources or with an explicitly delegated custodian. Some participants may use a managed exchange service. Retention, hosting, recovery, onward sharing, and exit arrangements must define what that service can hold and for how long. Even directory or routing metadata can reveal commercially sensitive relationships.
Separate the business objects
An order, consignment, shipment, transport leg, container, pallet, declaration, and invoice are related objects with different identities. One order may split across several loads. Several orders may share a container. A shipment can move through multiple transport modes and storage locations.
The prototype's shipment and journey references provide a small starting point. A full production model must define how these objects split, combine, change custody, and relate to documents. It must not treat one shipment identifier as proof that all downstream records describe the same goods.
Exchange lifecycle
- An authorized organization prepares a message in an agreed profile.
- The receiving exchange validates its structure and the issuer's authority to submit it.
- The exchange stores or routes the message according to the agreed service model and recipient permissions.
- Authorized recipients retrieve the message and may record a business receipt.
- A correction creates a new linked record and preserves the earlier evidence.
Delivery, business acceptance, physical custody, and regulatory status are distinct. The network must preserve who reported each fact, what they were authorized to report, and when it occurred.
Reliability requirements
Production connectors should tolerate repeat delivery, delayed messages, and out-of-order events. Consumers need duplicate-safe processing and explicit rules for stale information. An outage must not silently convert an estimate into a current operational status.
The local prototype persists messages and receipts in SQLite. Durable cross-organization delivery, subscriptions, independent endpoints, disaster recovery, and service-level commitments remain future work. See trust and governance and the roadmap.
Copyright © 2026 Stephen Makonin.