SCALES “Supply Chain Architecture Leading to Enhanced Services” (Action No: 2018-IT-IA-0053) is a project funded by the European Commission through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme. AgID coordinates a group of Italian institutions and private partner (Politecnico di Milano, UNINFO, InfoCert and DAFNE), which has been awarded funding for the project under the CEF Telecom Call - eInvoicing (CEF-TC-2018-2).
The main objective of the project is to consolidate the national eInvoicing system with a strong focus on innovation. It will study and implement a new services-oriented architecture based on DLT/blockchain and distributed repositories, aimed at processing, in a cost-effective way, large volumes of electronic invoices and other relevant documents, and integrate eInvoicing with eProcurement and other systems/services used in the post-award phase.
More specifically, the action will encompass the following objectives:
- Analysis, design and implementation of a new service-oriented architecture to be adopted by the public procurement systems involved in the post-award process, especially focused on the evolution of the architectural model now implemented by SDI. The outcome will be to move from an architecture based on a centralised registry and repository to an architecture based on distributed registries and repositories
- Implementation and enhancement of services targeting SMEs for a complete adoption of the EN and its ancillary deliverables with a specific focus on the digital transformation of the post-award in B2G, B2B and B2C contexts
- Integration of eInvoicing functionalities into existing eProcurement platforms scaling up the results achieved in previous actions eIGOR (2015-EU-IA-0050) and EeISI (2017-IT-IA-0150) with a specific focus on the digital transformation of the post-award and based on the abovementioned service-oriented architecture instead of on the current centralized, SDI-based architecture
- Analysis, design and implementation of an innovative supply chain services framework based on cutting-edge technologies and distributed electronic registries
- Dissemination and exploitation activities to facilitate and promote a further adoption of EN 16931 invoices in cross-border and domestic contexts in both public and private business domains.
The project also entails a close coordination with the standardization activities already ongoing within the EU technical committees and reference communities for electronic invoicing and eProcurement.