# Tracking steel material provenance and compliance securely

> Tata Steel initiated a blockchain pilot project with SAP, IBM, and Arup to secure steel material records and provenance in the construction sector. Operating under the Construction Smart Contract Committee, the consortium focused on creating tamper-resistant supply chain records for structural materials. This collaborative approach aims to streamline verification processes and prevent the risks of counterfeit quality certifications on construction sites.

**Sector:** Secondary sector · **Industry:** Construction · **Organisation:** Tata Steel, SAP, IBM, Arup · **Maturity level:** Pilot

Canonical URL: https://www.sapientblock.com/en/use-cases/tata-steel-stahlbaustoffe-materialzertifikate-faelschungssicher-nachverfolgen

## Documentation status

- **Project status:** Pilot
- **Evidence:** Evidence medium
- **Editorial review:** pending

## Description

Tata Steel developed a blockchain-supported proof system for steel construction materials together with partners such as SAP, IBM and Arup. In the construction industry, analogue quality certificates and inconsistent data flows for building materials pose a continuous risk of delays and liability cases. The decentralised platform enables all participants to access verified material data directly from the manufacturer’s plant.

Within the Construction Smart Contract Committee, Tata Steel, the engineering and planning firm Arup, and technology companies IBM and SAP joined forces to solve an acute industry problem. On complex construction sites, verifying material qualities and load-bearing certificates is traditionally laborious, as documents undergo multiple media breaks. The joint pilot solution converts material test certificates at production into tamper-proof digital data sets on a shared ledger. Smart contracts automatically compare the properties of the delivered steel with the contractual and building regulation requirements of the respective construction phase. This seamless integration of manufacturer, IT service providers and engineers creates a reliable digital product passport that guarantees full traceability from the melt to the installed beam.

## Benefits

- Reduction of liability and forgery risks for safety-relevant construction steel
- Automated target-actual comparison of material specifications via smart contract
- Seamless and tamper-proof traceability of building materials from the factory
- Reduction of media breaks and manual documentation errors
- Acceleration of approval processes upon delivery to construction sites
- Relief from paper-based tracking of countless individual certificates
- Greater certainty in building regulation document verification

## Challenges

- Willingness of competing suppliers and subcontractors to use a shared platform infrastructure
- High integration effort across different company and ERP boundaries
- Lack of comprehensive data standards for material certificates across the entire construction industry
- Required digital skills for verifying cryptographically secured material certificates

## Technology foundation

The solution uses a distributed ledger network and smart contracts for the immutable storage and verification of mill certificates and supply chain data between steel manufacturers, software providers, and engineering service providers.

## Sources

- [Blockchain in construction — it's all about data, trust and productivity](https://www.governanceinstitute.com.au/news_media/blockchain-in-construction-its-all-about-data-trust-and-productivity/)
- [Blockchain Technology in the Construction Industry (ICE)](https://www.academia.edu/38193166/Blockchain_Technology_in_the_Construction_Industry_ICE_pdf)