Manufacturing And Food Traceability Across Supply Chain
Records of contracts and transactions are at the heart of business. To be of any use, records must be created only after identities and timeline of events are established and verified. This part of business has mostly escaped the economy's digital transformation. Blockchain promises to solve this problem. The technology at the heart of bitcoin and other virtual currencies, blockchain is an open, distributed ledger that can record any transactions efficiently, verifiably and permanently. The ledger itself can also be programmed to trigger transactions if pre-agreed upon conditions are met.
Blockchain technology makes sure that every record in a shared ledger: every process, every task, every payment has a digital signature that could be identified, validated, stored, and shared and could not be altered. Moreover, attempt to temper an existing record renders it invalid. This is the immense potential of blockchain.
The supply chain is by definition a network of companies that collectively work on a product, starting from raw materials end ending with the finished product sold to the end customer. Through various stages of production components and intermediate products are transferred from one supply chain link (company) to the next. The production process, including product movement through the manufacturing process steps, and from one company to the next is naturally aligned with the linked blockchain transactions.
For many years we have been working with manufacturing and food processing clients on inventory management and traceability solutions. Our new traceability solution, Shared Traceability, is a simple solution that
Currently, the vast majority of companies are using their own internal ERP and inventory management systems. There is no transparency. Traceability is, at best, limited to a single company. Blockchain technology solves these problems by enabling end-to-end product traceability, where each company can enter its own data and access an entire traceability trail. Prior to blockchain, integrity of the system that is not entirely under your control was an important and valid concern when it comes to a single traceability system for the entire supply chain network. Immutability (if you can't change it, it's immutable) and tamper-proof nature of the blockchain alleviates this concern.