How Blockchain Technology Can Transform The Supply Chain And Logistics

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How Blockchain Technology Can Transform The
Supply Chain And Logistics
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Managing todays supply chains are a complex
task. Depending on the item, the supply chain can
work on hundreds of stages, multiple locations,
many invoices, and payments which can have
several entities involved and take a longer time.
And due to all these complexities and lack of
transparency, today we can see an interest in how
blockchain can help the current supply chain.
Blockchain technology comes with the ability to
provide traceability across the supply chain. The
technology lets the manufacturers, logistics,
and customers to aggregate information, analyze
trends and do predictive monitoring.
How is the supply chain fragmented? The current
supply chain is fragmented in various ways. A few
decades ago, supply chains were not complicated
as the businesses were local, but now it has
become complex. If you see the
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history there have been changes in transporting
from rail to flight, also the emergence of
personal computers saw changes in supply chain
management. It is difficult for customers to
truly know the actual price of products because
there is a significant lack of transparency in
the current supply chain system. Likewise, it is
difficult to investigate supply chains when
there are illegal practices happening. It also
gets problematic when the vendors and suppliers
try to connect on who needs what, when and
how. What is blockchain and how could it help
supply chains? Though the most common use case of
blockchain is in the cryptocurrency, by now you
have understood that it is essentially a
distributed, digital ledger and can be used for
exchange, contracts, tracking, and payment for
sure. Every transaction is recorded as a series
of the block that contains information, chained
together to offer a reliable and secure
accounting for any particular field of work and
are distributed over many nodes (in the network
which is known as nodes). In a block the
information shared is encrypted, confirmed and
distributed to a number of linked nodes. The
things which are necessary for reliability and
integrity in a supply chain are offered by
blockchain. This ledger is secure and
tamper-proof. It provides consensus and all
individuals on the chain own same version of the
ledger. The activities such as transactions,
exchanging cryptocurrency, medical records,
shareholder records, agreements are some of the
best uses so far. However, it has a huge
potential. It can increase the efficiency and
transparency of supply chains and positively
impact processes like warehousing to delivery to
payment. Where the Supply Chain Transparency is
lacking? Talking about the garment industry, most
of us do not know who actually made our clothes
and definitely not aware of all the stages of
garment journey. The transparency in the garment
industry is a little dicey. And the only thing
which helps us is the Made in label to check
where the garment is produced but it is also
found to be misleading sometime. Many companies
produce the majority of their garment somewhere
else and then ship the half made item to local
city to complete. Even over the world of
medicines, there are challenges in tracking the
drug supply chain. The complex global supply
chains make it difficult to determine the origin
of the drugs or the ingredients. The drugs pass
through multiple trading companies before they
arrive at its final destination, but these
companies dont check the quality. The absence of
interoperable labeling and identifications
standard poses a big threat to the drug supply
management. Additionally, the multiple changes of
hands, including packaging and logistics, can be
the potential points of entry for faulty drugs.
Here blockchain technology development comes in
the scene, where it let the end user and drug
manufacturer or look after every step to be sure
that the information is correct and there is no
corruption in the process.
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• The authenticity of the product and theft
  prevention
• Once a company put supply chain tracking with the
  blockchain, they can offer a complete journey
  detail of a product. No frauds will be there, as
  no different entities can hack into the
• secure blockchain network. This process will
  automatically prevent any duplication, as a
  unique
• digital ID is assigned to each SKU. All thanks to
  blockchains secure decentralized data storage
  system.
• Inventory management and distribution
• With blockchains distributed feature, each
  transaction is monitored and distributed. It
  allows agile and secure data collection. It
  helps to record all the material in inventory and
  whether the warehouses are distributing
  seamlessly to all targeted areas. The information
  stored in blockchain helps the retailer,
  supplier, and manufacturer to communicate
  transparently and protect the information in
  each stage. Even the monetary transaction is made
  easy.
• Blockchains activity is not restricted to only
  this stage, it can impact the post-consumer items
  life cycle stages too. It is sure that the early
  adopters will gain advantages. An industry-wise
  single platform will make the technology more
  cost-effective and efficient
• but blockchain technology requires a level of
  cooperation from different entities.
• Few recent examples of Blockchain used in supply
  chains
• In the food industry, it is vital to keep solid
  records to trace each product to its origin. So,
  Walmart is using blockchain to keep track of its
  food (meat) it sources from China and the
  blockchain platform records where each piece of
  meat came from, processed, stored and its
  sell-by-date.
• Dole, Unilever, Nestle also use blockchain for
  similar purposes.
• Another recent project related to seafood
  verification is also launched. The Pacific Tuna
  Project is a supply chain traceability project
  that utilizes blockchain to tracks tuna from
  habitat to market. This effort is intended to
  remove illegal fishing and human rights abuse.
• The worlds largest mining firm BHP Billiton also
  announced it will use blockchain to better track
  and record data throughout the mining process
  with its vendors.
• Many companies can opt for their own dApp
  development (decentralized app) which will
  support their overseas business and improve the
  overall supply chain.

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