No abstract

Quality is an essential element for any company that wants to be recognized successfully; because of this, the companies undergo a certification process under a quality standard such as ISO 9001 that allows them to improve the performance of its operation, differentiate itself from its competitors, achieve a better position in the market and export quickly. In this sense, making and maintaining such certification can be under high pressure over the company, up to become a source of corruption risk, since, in emerging markets, companies may be tempted to perform unethical practices such as falsifying or adulterating documents to maintain their certifications and the benefits derived from it. Besides, considering that the quality management system audit process is based on the verification made by a third party of the documents and records of the company against the quality standard, it becomes necessary to reinforce with technology the audit process to minimize this kind of risk. Given this, a software architecture for a quality management system supported in BPMN and Blockchain technology is proposed to guarantee the integrity and immutability of the system and information, which allows exposing any attempt at fraud and facilitates the audit process's automation.

This exploratory study explains how to implement Blockchain technology for a supply chain by a proof of concept on Hyperledger Fabric, an open distributed ledger platform. This approach allowed to identify the feasibility and some implementation challenges, yield feedback, and exemplify one manner of tracing product origin using a distributed ledger technology. For this purpose, the case study of origin coffee is analyzed, given the relevance of traceability in this type of coffee and the cultural and economic importance of this agricultural product in the Colombian context. In addition, the data stored in the Blockchain and some technological architecture aspects are discussed.