Putting the brakes on bureaucracy, promoting innovation: SMARTCHAIN helps small and medium-sized enterprises through the contract jungle

Smaller suppliers in particular often have to prove that their products are manufactured under fair, legally impeccable conditions - and this in comparison to large corporations that have long had their own standards and requirements. This can mean pages and pages of contracts, legal advice, and time-consuming coordination with partner companies. All of this costs time, money, and sometimes nerves.

SMARTCHAIN aims to simplify and digitalise this process. The platform will check and manage contractual documents with the help of AI, automatically and traceably. For example, the coordination of codes of conduct for suppliers should be faster, more transparent, and cheaper. This includes topics such as data protection (GDPR), international sanctions, or sustainability requirements, and all of this is modular, i.e., customisable to different industries and contract types. The goal: less paperwork, more clarity and planning security, without small businesses having to reorganise their entire day-to-day operations.

The project will run from February 2025 to January 2028, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space with a total of 5.8 million euros. Participants include Ingolstadt University of Applied Sciences, thyssenkrupp Materials Services, Jonda Metallwarenfabrik GmbH, and other partners from research and consulting.

 What makes SMARTCHAIN special is that it combines expertise from industry, law, and technology, while keeping an eye on the everyday life of small and medium-sized enterprises. This is because they are often particularly affected by new laws, but rarely have their own legal or IT departments. SMARTCHAIN does not see itself as a substitute for human expertise, but rather as support, so that SMEs can focus on what matters despite growing bureaucracy: Innovation and their own business.