Supply Chain Data Exchange is a proposed Canadian data network for imports, exports, and interprovincial trade. Its scope includes ship, rail, and truck movements and the transfers through ports, terminals, and warehouses. The objective is to reuse reliable information across organizations while controlling who can see and act on it.
The Digital Supply Chain Lab at Simon Fraser University is the driving force behind the SCDx exchange standard and this documentation website. National governance arrangements and operational responsibilities remain to be agreed.
Status: working draft 0.1.0, 26 October 2026. These documents describe an initial SCDx profile and a local Python prototype. They do not establish an approved national standard, a live trade network, regulatory acceptance, or certification against another organization's standard. No government agency, standards body, or commercial operator is represented as an SCDx partner by these documents.
Start here
| Document | What it explains |
|---|---|
| Architecture | The proposed network, authoritative sources, and shared services. |
| Core profile | The implemented message contract and validation rules. |
| Trade journeys | Import, export, and interprovincial scenarios across transport modes. |
| Trust and governance | Access, responsibility, corrections, and decisions beyond the prototype. |
| International mappings | Standards to reuse and the limits of the initial mappings. |
| Python prototype | Installation, examples, API behavior, and local operation. |
| Roadmap | Evidence and work required before a live pilot. |
The Initial Design Brief PDF provides the project rationale and initial design recommendations.
Scope of this release
The common foundation covers message identity, the issuing organization, named recipients, shipment references, transport legs, locations, and business events. A local exchange demonstrates structural validation, organization access, repeat submission, corrections, and recipient receipts using synthetic examples.
The broader network must eventually connect commercial orders and invoices, logistics information, and relevant regulatory documents. Those complete document profiles and external connectors are future work. The prototype does not submit declarations, establish title to goods, release cargo, move money, or authenticate an official certificate.
Conventions
Within a document describing implemented behavior, MUST identifies a requirement of this SCDx draft profile, SHOULD identifies a recommended practice, and MAY identifies an optional behavior. These words do not impose legal duties or requirements on an external standard.
Technical names in backticks identify fields or commands in the prototype. Examples are illustrative synthetic data. An external identifier is meaningful only together with its scheme and issuing context. A matching string in two systems does not prove that both systems refer to the same business object.
Changes and contributions
Propose changes through a repository issue or pull request. State the problem, affected actors, example data, compatibility impact, and validation evidence. A change to an external mapping should identify the source standard and version. A change to a required field or its meaning must include migration guidance and updated examples and tests.
The current maintainer can review this initial implementation; the long-term SCDx governing authority and approval process remain to be agreed. Published drafts should retain their version and status so that discussion cannot be mistaken for operational adoption.
Copyright © 2026 Stephen Makonin.