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Transparent Supply Chain Tracking in the Automotive Industry

Sector: Secondary sector · Industry: Automotive industry · Organisation: Ford mit IBM und RCS Global · Maturity level: Pilot

Ford, together with IBM and RCS Global, implemented a blockchain platform that traces cobalt from certified mine sites to battery manufacturing. Supplier declarations and an immutable audit trail are used to verify the origin of raw materials and reduce ESG risks. The project addresses key ethical sourcing risks such as child labor and conflict financing in the cobalt supply chain.

Documentation status

• Project status: Pilot
• Evidence: Evidence high
• Editorial review: Ufuk Avci, 12 July 2026

Description

Ford, IBM, and RCS Global have jointly launched a pilot project that tracks cobalt – a key raw material for electric vehicle batteries – along the entire supply chain using blockchain technology. The technology ensures that every handover of the raw material, from the cobalt mine through the smelting process and cathode production to the vehicle manufacturer, is immutably recorded digitally. This allows companies, for the first time, to provide seamless proof that the cobalt they use comes from ethically responsible sources free from child labour and conflict financing.

The pilot project by Ford, IBM, and RCS Global addresses a structural problem in the global battery supply chain: cobalt, an indispensable raw material for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, is largely mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where reports of child labour and human rights abuses burden the industry. The technology used is based on the IBM Blockchain Platform, which builds on Hyperledger Fabric from the Linux Foundation and, as a permissioned blockchain, enables secure, controlled participation of selected supply chain partners. Specifically, batches of cobalt from the partner Huayou Cobalt’s mine were packaged in security bags, digitally recorded, and tracked step-by-step through the smelting process and LG Chem’s production facilities in South Korea to the Ford plant in the USA. Each step along this chain is stored as an immutable entry in the blockchain, creating a tamper-proof audit trail accessible to all authorised participants. The partners planned during the pilot to expand the platform after successful completion to include further minerals and additional network members, which later led to the creation of the Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network (RSBN), joined by Volkswagen and Volvo Cars among others.

Perspectives

B2B — organisations perspective

For companies in the automotive industry and related sectors, this blockchain solution offers the opportunity to demonstrate the compliance of their raw material supply chains to business partners, investors, and regulators in a seamless and credible manner. The platform creates a shared, trustworthy data foundation for all involved supply chain partners and significantly reduces the effort required for manual audits and supplier surveys.

Employees perspective

Employees in purchasing, compliance, and sustainability management gain access for the first time through the blockchain platform to a fully digitised and verifiable data basis on raw material provenance. This transforms their work from reactive document checking to proactive, data-driven risk management along the entire supply chain.

Benefits

General

• Seamless, tamper-proof traceability of cobalt from the mine site to the end product
• Proof of ethical sourcing to regulators, investors, and the public
• Reduction of reputational risks by excluding uncertified supply sources
• Foundation for expansion to other critical raw materials and new network participants

B2B — organisations

• Meeting growing legal due diligence requirements in the supply chain through automated documentation
• Strengthening negotiating position with suppliers through transparent, data-based evaluation
• Access to an expandable network of ethically certified supply chain partners

Employees

• Significant reduction of manual audit and documentation tasks through automated blockchain logging
• Higher operational safety through a reliable data basis for compliance decisions

Challenges

General

• Integrating all supply chain partners, especially small-scale miners, into a digital system is technically and logistically challenging
• The solution requires the trust and active participation of all parties along the entire supply chain
• Complete transparency can only be achieved if no supply chain segments remain outside the system

B2B — organisations

• High implementation complexity due to the need to integrate multiple international partners with different IT systems
• Dependence on the commitment and technical readiness of all supply chain partners for the platform’s success

Employees

• Employees need new digital skills in handling blockchain platforms and data-based audit processes

Technology foundation

The solution is based on the IBM Blockchain Platform, which is built on Hyperledger Fabric from the Linux Foundation. Hyperledger Fabric is particularly well suited for this use case because, as a permissioned blockchain, it allows controlled participation of defined supply chain partners without making sensitive business data publicly accessible. The immutable recording of every handover along the supply chain creates a tamper-proof audit trail that documents the origin of raw materials such as cobalt comprehensively.

Implementation examples

Ford-IBM-RCS Global cobalt traceability pilot

Cobalt, an essential raw material for electric vehicle batteries, is largely mined in regions where child labour and human rights violations have been documented. Ford needed a credible and scalable method to prove the ethical origin of the cobalt used to regulators, investors and the public.

Ford, together with IBM and RCS Global, launched a pilot project that tracks cobalt from certified mines using the IBM Blockchain Platform across multiple supply chain stages up to vehicle production. The aim was to create a tamper-proof digital audit trail to ensure ethical cobalt sourcing.

The pilot project tracked batches of cobalt from partner Huayou Cobalt from the mining site in the Democratic Republic of Congo through smelting and cathode production at LG Chem in South Korea to Ford plants in the USA. At each handover point, the batches were digitally recorded and stored as immutable entries on the IBM Blockchain Platform based on Hyperledger Fabric. According to sources, the pilot started in December of the previous year and was expected to be completed by mid-2019. IBM later described the infrastructure resulting from the project as the basis for the Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network (RSBN), which was joined by other car manufacturers such as Volkswagen and Volvo Cars, indicating successful development beyond the initial pilot.

Before the pilot project, the cobalt supply chain was reportedly hardly transparent according to Supply Chain Dive, making reliable verification of raw material origin practically impossible. The blockchain solution created the first seamless, tamper-proof audit trail documenting all relevant handover points along the supply chain and reducing the risk of uncertified or ethically problematic sources.

Tags

Supply chain, Raw material tracking, ESG, Hyperledger Fabric, Ethical sourcing, Cobalt, Transparency

Sources

1. Ford, IBM and RCS Global among companies launching blockchain pilot for mineral supply chain
2. Ford, IBM team up to track minerals with blockchain
3. Ford, IBM to create blockchain program for cobalt
4. Ford, IBM and others pilot blockchain supply chain for cobalt
5. Ford to use blockchain in pilot to trace cobalt mined in Congo
6. Blockchain and sustainability through responsible sourcing
7. Volvo Cars joins Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network launched by IBM, Ford and Volkswagen Group
8. RCS Global leverages IBM Blockchain to change the game for responsible sourcing