What is the Basic Data Infrastructure?
Supply chains are becoming increasingly complex, international, and digital. Organizations collaborate intensively with suppliers, manufacturers, carriers, distributors, governments, and customers. In this environment, reliable and secure data exchange is essential. This includes visibility into inventories, deliveries, product information, sustainability performance, compliance, and collaboration across the supply chain.
The right data at the right time
To collaborate more efficiently within a supply chain, organizations need the right data to be available at the right time and to the right parties. The BDI provides the solution: a framework of agreements for secure, flexible, and standardized data sharing between organizations.
With the BDI, organizations share data based on clear agreements and authorizations. Data always remains at the source, and organizations retain full control over their own information. This creates a trusted digital foundation for collaboration across supply chains and ecosystems.
Why is the BDI framework needed?
Supply chains are under increasing pressure. Organizations must respond more quickly to disruptions, changing market conditions, and stricter requirements related to sustainability, transparency, and compliance. At the same time, more and more parties are collaborating in complex supply chains, often using different systems, processes, and interests.
To remain agile and future-proof, access to reliable and up-to-date data is crucial. Organizations want real-time insight into processes, deliveries, product flows, availability, and supply chain performance. Only then can they make faster decisions, collaborate more effectively, and operate more efficiently.
The BDI makes this possible by organizing data exchange in a simpler, more secure, and scalable way, across organizations, sectors, and application domains.
Efficient
The BDI operates on the basis of standardized agreements for event-driven data exchange. When something changes in a process, delivery, inventory, schedule, or product status, relevant information can immediately be made securely available to the parties involved.
As a result, organizations gain faster access to up-to-date information and can align processes more effectively. This leads to less manual work, fewer errors, lower integration costs, and more efficient collaboration across the supply chain.
The BDI supports a wide range of applications, from logistics coordination and inventory management to sustainability reporting, compliance challenges, and product information across the entire supply chain.
Safe
Security and trust form the foundation of the BDI framework. Organizations decide for themselves which data they share, with whom, and under which conditions. Access to data is managed through clear agreements, authorizations, and digital trust mechanisms.
As a result, organizations retain control over their own data, while the origin and use of information remain transparent and verifiable. This enables organizations to collaborate securely without becoming dependent on a single centralized platform or system.
Trust
Successful collaboration within supply chains requires trust between organizations. The BDI supports this through a shared framework for data sharing, governance, and collaboration.
At the same time, there is room for sector-specific or supply chain-specific agreements. Within so-called BDI associations, organizations can establish additional agreements that fit their own processes, ecosystems, and ways of collaborating.
This makes the BDI broadly applicable across different sectors and domains, from logistics and construction to agri-food, industry, retail, and circular supply chains. Organizations can collaborate securely and flexibly with both established partners and new parties within their ecosystem.
Seven core principles of the BDI
Connecting physical and digital processes
The BDI is used for the ‘live’ exchange of data regarding daily processes.Event-driven architecture
If anything changes relating to a transport route or stock, or if an order is added, a message is sent out immediately.Zero trust
To improve mutual trust, each party registers with local subnetworks (BDI associations).Dynamic data
Sharing data that is time-sensitive and can be created ad hoc, so it must always be up to date.Data at the source
The data owner decides who has access to each piece of data and which conditions apply.Local decision-making
Subnetworks have room for local habits, agreements and legislation.Coherent security
The security of various components and protocols is properly matched.