Blockchain Continues to Make Its Way into the Supply Chain World

by Jennifer Hart Yim | Apr 18, 2017 | Blog, Current Events, Logistics, Strategy, Supply Chain

Blockchain is coming, and it offers the potential to shake up Supply Chain and Logistics like few other technologies coming down the pike.

This guest post comes to us from Argentus Supply Chain Recruiting, a boutique recruitment firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and Procurement.

A few months back, we wrote about Blockchain as an emerging technology and tool for Supply Chain transparency. It’s a pretty incredible technology that stands to reshape big aspects of the economy in general and Supply Chain in particular – but it’s also pretty difficult for the common person to understand, which doesn’t help matters. But Blockchain is coming, and it offers the potential to shake up Supply Chain and Logistics like few other technologies coming down the pike.

In the simplest terms possible, Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that allows a decentralized network to track transactions within a system. It’s the technological basis for Bitcoin that solved the problem of how to verify transactions for a digital currency without relying on a central entity or bank.

One of the most relevant parts of Blockchain for Supply Chain purposes is the fact that Blockchains tend to be more open and transparent than other sorts of ledger systems – anyone participating in the network can see the transactions. Which has led Financial Services companies to seek out Blockchain technology to more quickly make cross-border payments and verify contracts. It’s also led to companies using Blockchain’s openness to redefine transparency about where they source their products. For example, seafood companies and other food production companies with overseas sourcing can use Blockchain to keep a solid record of every transaction along the Supply Chain, so that consumers can rest assured that the fish they’re buying was farmed sustainably, without using human slavery.

Here’s another new application: shipping giant Maersk is partnering with IBM to use Blockchain to track shipping containers. The goal here isn’t as much transparency as efficiency – which is a much-beloved quality in contemporary Supply Chains. Tracking shipping containers can involve dozens of people and hundreds of individual interactions as it makes its course along the Supply Chain from, say, China to the West Coast of the U.S. Maersks’s new Blockchain program will allow all stakeholders to witness the shipment’s progress and status at all times. The idea is to cut down on paperwork involved and allow both suppliers, buyers and shippers to streamline the process.

At the same time, Wal-Mart is delving into using Blockchain for food safety. Whereas merchants traditionally struggle with unfortunate product recalls that happen from time to time – pinpointing a specific SKU, a specific shipment, a specific vendor, of a product that’s made a customer ill and then taking it off the shelf – Wal-Mart is hoping that Blockchain will help it glean important data from receipts all up and down the Supply Chain: where was the food grown, who inspected it, etc.?

This can help the company be more strategic in removing items from shelves, avoiding the kind of broad-brush recalls (“pull all the spinach!”) that can cost a company millions.

With Wal-mart, Maersk, IBM, and other companies like Nasdaq and BHP Billiton starting to make their way into using Blockchain, it’s clear that the burgeoning tech has finally arrived on the scene.

Any Blockchain experts out there? Are there other applications or implications for Procurement and Supply Chain that we might not be thinking of? Let us know in the comments!

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5 More TED Talks for the Supply Chain

by Fronetics | Oct 18, 2016 | Blog, Logistics, Manufacturing & Distribution, Strategy, Supply Chain

These TED Talks, which cover issues from technology to business strategy, will be of interest to companies in the supply chain.

Back in December, we wrote about 5 TED Talks that might be of interest to the supply chain. Since that time, the popularity of the site has continued to grow, and it continues to add more interesting and thought-provoking content.

Here are 5 more TED Talks from 2016 that companies in the supply chain and logistics industry will want to see. They cover a range of topics, from technology to business strategy.

TED Talks the supply chain will want to watch

1. The Next Manufacturing Revolution Is Here

By Oliver Scalabre, Senior Partner and Managing Director, BCG – Paris

Economic growth has been slowing for the past 50 years, but relief might come from an unexpected place — a new form of manufacturing that is neither what you thought it was nor where you thought it was. Industrial systems thinker Olivier Scalabre details how a fourth manufacturing revolution will produce a macroeconomic shift and boost employment, productivity, and growth. Watch

2. The Jobs We’ll Lose to Machines — and the Ones We Won’t

By Anthony Goldbloom, Co-Founder and CEO of Kaggle

Machine learning isn’t just for simple tasks like assessing credit risk and sorting mail anymore — today, it’s capable of far more complex applications, like grading essays and diagnosing diseases. With these advances comes an uneasy question: Will a robot do your job in the future? Watch

3. Two Reasons Companies Fail — and How to Avoid Them

By Knut Haanaes, Professor of Strategy and International Management, IMD

Is it possible to run a company and reinvent it at the same time? For business strategist Knut Haanaes, the ability to innovate after becoming successful is the mark of a great organization. He shares insights on how to strike a balance between perfecting what we already know and exploring totally new ideas — and lays out how to avoid two major strategy traps. Watch

4. How to Build a Business that Lasts 100 Years

By Martin Reeves, Director of the BCG Henderson Institute

If you want to build a business that lasts, there may be no better place to look for inspiration than your own immune system. Join strategist Martin Reeves as he shares startling statistics about shrinking corporate life spans and explains how executives can apply six principles from living organisms to build resilient businesses that flourish in the face of change. Watch

5. Shape-Shifting Tech Will Change Work as We Know It

By Sean Follmer, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University

What will the world look like when we move beyond the keyboard and mouse? Interaction designer Sean Follmer is building a future with machines that bring information to life under your fingers as you work with it. In this talk, check out prototypes for a 3D shape-shifting table, a phone that turns into a wristband, a deformable game controller and more that may change the way we live and work. Watch