Key Points

1. Blockchains can provide trust in many contexts: consortiums, internal systems etc
2. Public or private? who can read a blockchain
3. Permissioned or permissionless? who can write to a blockchain
4. Blockchain (DLT) or Immutable Ledger required? Does a consortium add value
5. Asset-backed tokens an option to fiat for products and services
6. Chainyard and IBM lead supply chain with Trust Your Supplier
7. Blockchain technology provides some new capabilities but the highest value ( as usual ) comes from re-engineering the Value Chain Network
8. Design - for each major activity in focus for the ecosystem, review current and proposed solutions pros and cons for each type of participant !! get metrics !!
9. Understand governance for the ecosystem - internal and external. Automate governance in contracts where feasible
10. SWT - BSA - Blockchain Solution Assessment - Putting Blockchain to Work

Blockchain is a team sport similar to rowing

For me, blockchain is a different kind of team sport. Normally everyone has a plan, goes out on the field and executes to the best of their ability.

I think of blockchain as a sport similar to rowing. No matter how fast you row, you can't finish ahead of the boat. Team work is the only option in rowing. Building business consensus on rules across a network is a similar challenge and complete team work is the only strategy for success.

New Blockchain Use Cases

Pain Points Blockchain can address

from Altoros..

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blockchain-new-revenue-streams-finance-organizations-gorelyshev/

• Redundant efforts
• Lack of standardized processes
• High costs
• Counterparty risks
• Manual processing bandwidth bottlenecks
• Data errors
• Fraud
• Data privacy management
• Provenance
• Authenticity
• Delivery time
• Risk reduction
• Revenue impacts
• Resource impacts
• Better demand visibility
• Better decision making
• Traceability backward and forward
• Faster responses with visibility

Well-engineered DLT solutions may have significant impacts on one or more of these pain points in current systems.

Where can shared trust networks pay off?

anywhere shared trust is needed and missing now between parties consider adding:

1. Decentralized Identities issued by the government to identify participants
2. Blockchain STEAR - search, track,escalate,audit, remediate
3. Compliance and regulations important for effective internal and external governance
4. AI to identify biases and trust exceptions
5. chain of custody for all goods and materials including content
6. Iot - RFID and digital twins to identify, track, interact with things
7. health check services on all active objects
8. validation of object knowledge and relations
9. AI to automate inspections on source, destination
10. AI training for good, bad criteria patterns on inspections
11. AI analysis of potential lies with automated verification of facts
12. "the truth machine = gigo2"

How Blockchain can add value to many use cases

Jim Mason

"Trust is the fuel that business and society run on. Digital identities, credentials and blockchain can improve your mileage"

Jim Mason   You DMX Foundry Director at Dealer Market Exchange

IBM Looking at a potential Pharma blockchain network,

https://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Article/2019/11/21/IBM-at-Pharma-Integrates-on-blockchain-technology?_lrsc=4cf329d9-c7de-4425-b0ec-1b5c5dd5432b

Jason Lacombe, CEO of Veratrak on blockchain value-add:

“So, anywhere there is a lack of trust in the exchange of information that obstructs a process or pain points in a process, we see it as a potential area to apply blockchain,”

in-pharmatechnologist.com-Lack of collaboration the biggest challenge in adopting blockchain says IBM.pdf

This was a good read. I hadn't heard of GrainChain Inc before, but there are several things I like about what they're doing. They are:

* Combining #provenance and #smartcontract-based transaction simplification. I've been preaching the value of bringing these together. Provenance is generally a nice to have whose tangible value can be difficult to quantify outside of a few high-value products.

* Using the transparency and trust created by blockchain to expand access to capital. This is good for the banks/lenders and the people who doing the hard work. It's encouraging to see that lenders "latched on almost immediately."

* Educating those who might be threatened (buyers/exporters) on how provenance increases the value of what they sell.

* Assembling all the key types of parties in a community to use a new platform that has benefits for each participant. We've been calling these networks "ecosystems," but "community" really fits for this one. It has the inherent notion of working together and collaboration. I'm very bullish on #blockchain in #supplychain. At Chainyard, we have our own cool projects in the space, but it's fun to see how others are making it happen.

Jim Mason

Great points Alex. The key to these ecosystems is thinking through the key impacts from the perspective of each type of participant and finding net wins and translating that to an operations model and an implementation roadmap

What are the candidate new use cases?

1. government shipping restrictions
2. social platform censorship
3. tracking media bias
4. media compliance with Freedom of the Press
5. e-verify employment checks
6. voter registrations
7. government benefit registrations
8. health care services registrations
9. personal data compliance
10. reverse logistics - recalls, returns etc
11. government online identities for benefits, programs, licenses

New Gen AI use cases in Supply Chain - genai

TechTarget > 7 generative AI use cases in supply chain - 2024

Generative AI (GenAI) is an emerging technology that is gaining popularity in various business areas, including marketing and sales. By analyzing an organization's data, GenAI can potentially improve operational efficiency and supply chain resiliency.

However, users should be aware of concerns surrounding what's known as AI hallucinations, which could hamper GenAI's ability to improve supply chain operations.

Gen AI models 

the GenAI process consists of inputting a command or question into a text, image or video field, which prompts the AI to generate new content. GenAI models are typically trained on large-scale data sets, and when a user inputs fresh data, the application uses the new data and its previously learned knowledge to create new content.

Users can train GenAI on data that covers every aspect of the supply chain, including inventory, logistics and demand. By analyzing the organization's information, GenAI can help improve supply chain management and resiliency.

Demand Forecasting

Organizations can use GenAI models on historical sales data, market trends and other factors to simulate potential supply-and-demand scenarios and improve their demand forecasting accuracy. Tracking demand patterns can help organizations mitigate disruption and avoid stocking issues.

Inventory Planning

GenAI that has been trained on key data such as stock levels, warehouse capacity and manufacturing time can suggest ways to optimize inventory processes, including recommending when to restock or reduce stock, which can help cut down on excess storage. Storing extra product costs companies more money, so reducing excess stock could cut down on costs. Raw materials and parts, WIP and Finished Goods inventories including location analysis for customers. Look at Winters double exponential smoothing algorithm for forecasting. On WIP, look at family assembly forecasting better than individual parts.

Customer and supplier communications automation

GenAI can automatically send out messages, so employees don't have to. Large language models and natural language processing can consume data from sources like market events that might affect suppliers and traffic delays involving specific shipments, then GenAI chatbots can notify suppliers about risk. GenAI chatbots can also handle some customer queries, like processing a return or tracking a delivery.

Ideally, there are automated workflows and you are adding automated communication alerts for planned life cycle events or immediate notifications on exceptions

Operations optimizations

GenAI can assess aspects of operations like supplier performance and manufacturing speed, then suggest ways to optimize procedures. These optimizations can also potentially save companies money, among other benefits. Think multi-factor vendor performance analysis on vendor certfication programs for critical parts and supplies:   vendor quality, price, delivery, variances, performance against program KPIs and SLAs

Logistics management

GenAI models with data such as historical weather patterns, traffic maps and fuel prices can identify routes for optimal travel and highlight potential upcoming disruptions as well as alternate routes if needed. Doing so can help shipping stay on schedule and improve customer service, since orders won't be delayed.

Automated updates that impact delivery schedule, quality, costs, availability etc are key to minimize disruptions in supply chains and maximize efficiency and resiliency. Gen AI can help identify alternate solutions GIVEN the specific grounded data, the delivery plans, the supplier context for well-trained models.

Sustainability and scalability

Training GenAI models on a company's current material use as well as market projections for renewable materials can give insight into how to make processes more sustainable while also considering cost-effectiveness and long-term scalability.

Like other areas, feedback on performance and forward planning for sustainability metrics and scalability capabilities can incorporate Gen AI models evaluating alternatives given the specific grounded data and context a well trained model needs to produce useful output. In some cases, the trained models can be calibrated to actual accurate data improving the model accuracy.

Analytics

As with all other GenAI supply chain use cases, caution is required when using the tech, as GenAI and the models that fuel it are still evolving. Current concerns include incorrect data and imperfect outputs, also known as AI hallucinations, which can prevent effective use.

Automated analytics can be done well using OKRs, related KPIs and SLIs for specific operations optimization use cases. Gen AI may or may not make a big contribution here. 

<< added comments by Jim Mason

References

Key Concepts

How Blockchain works

In a blockchain, each record in the ledger is stored in a block that contains:

1) Transaction data (who sent what amount of money to whom)

2) A timestamp documenting when the record was made

3) A unique cryptographic signature, called a hash, that links it to the previous block

In this way, all blockchain transactions are stored in a series of blocks that are chained together by the cryptographic signatures. Once a block is added, it is said to be immutable and its contents cannot be altered. This immutable chain is another of blockchain’s strengths, as it ensures that the entire history of a transaction can be reviewed and validated through an automated process.

Naturally, data stored on a blockchain sometimes needs updating. And when such additions are requested, the changes are validated automatically against every copy of the ledger on the network.

If, for example, someone with 10 Bitcoins attempts to purchase something that costs 15 Bitcoins, the consensus of the network is to deny the transaction because the individual can’t afford the purchase. This attempted transaction would be rejected, rather than added to the chain.

When transactions and changes are approved and validated by the network, the transaction data is recorded, timestamped, and linked to the previous block in the chain, and cryptographically sealed to ensure security.

Another blockchain security measure is the use of cryptography to create two unique keys, which are large alphanumeric strings that enable users to interact with the blockchain in a secure way:

• A public key contains a large numerical value that is used to encrypt data.
• A private key is mathematically linked to a corresponding public key.
• A transaction that is encrypted with a specific public key can only be decrypted by its corresponding private key—and vice-versa.
• The encrypted transaction is sent to the public address of the intended recipient, who then uses his or her own private key to decrypt the transaction.
• In addition to security, the use of private and public keys also enables users to protect their anonymity.

Because trust is the foundation of our personal and professional dealings, the variety of ways in which blockchain can transform our lives seems nearly infinite. There are several industries in which blockchain is having an early impact, which we’ll discuss in this guide.

Blockchain 101 for Supply Chains

https://101blockchains.com/blockchain-for-supply-chain/

Gartner Supply chain ebook pdf

Blockchain concepts for Supply Chains

m Blockchain Mobility 2#mobility-BlockchainSupplychainconceptsarticle

Blockchain complements Supply Chain - bicoin mag 2020

https://www.blockchainmagazine.net/how-blockchain-technology-and-supply-chain-complement-each-other/

blockchain-in-supply-chain-mgt-200127-bc-news.pdf

Blockchain can positively influence everything from delivery to warehousing and payment. It can be utilized for building agreements/smart contracts, reconciling, tracking, and payments.

Accordingly, companies can use technology to decrease forgery and analyze product recall. In case a product is defective, a manufacturer will be capable of locating affected products immediately and smoothly. 

Blockchain features that support Supply Chain

Compliance

In a universal operational environment, companies want to be docile with a broad range of global regulations. That said, the digitization of global trade has created new complexities; the size and complexity of transactions are also growing. Blockchain can assist in addressing these issues. 

It can assure automated compliance and recording, which will lessen friction and recording costs as well as reduce errors connected with manual activities.

The technology can additionally improve corporate governance by contributing information in real-time and seamlessly distributing data to the proper stakeholders. Critical areas where blockchain could develop compliance and reporting include manufacturers, medical devices, prescriptions, and other consumer goods.

Furthermore, data on the blockchain is almost immutable; i.e., it cannot be modified or deleted. That is why blockchain can be used as a document or evidence for the transfer of any digital asset.

Ownership and licensing

When it comes to precious assets like cars, real estate, art, it’s essential to record information about them most accurately. This is necessary to:

• preserve owners’ rights (e.g., in case of theft)
• resolve conflicts
• verify the correct transfer of ownership to a new owner after-sale
• prevent sales of frauds

It is essential to keep an accurate and complete record so that it can be prevented from illegal and fraudulent changes. That said, blockchain provides standardized licensing procedures in various industries. With the use of products, smart contracts, services, software, etc. licensing can be done automatically.

Reliability and integrity

Reliability and integrity are also indispensable in the supply chain. The fact that all active blockchain nodes have full copies of the blockchain ledger is crucial in this regard. Therefore, if one node is attacked, the data is still held by other nodes, making the system reliable.

Besides, since there is no particular point of failure, the network’s integrity and reliability will remain intact irrespective of who is managing the nodes.

Transparency

Everyone in the supply chain, the warehouse, the supplier, the buyer, and the end-user — have the chance to find out what’s happening to the product when it’s being transported. As a result, the producers can be sure that the label correctly reflects what’s inside the product.

Besides, customers will also sync with companies with whom they share the same values of environmental stewardship and sustainable manufacturing.

Privacy

Can privacy and transparency go hand in hand? Yes. Users on the blockchain can stay incognito. This way, they are more content with the idea of sharing data and far more open in the way they associate with the technology.

The benefits of adopting blockchain technology in the supply chain industry include:

• Reduce or eliminate fraud and errors
• Improve inventory management
• Minimize courier costs
• Reduce delays from paperwork
• Identify issues faster
• Increase consumer and partner trust
• Transparency into the provenance of consumer goods— from the source point to the end-user
• Asset tracking
• Licensing of services, products, and software

 Examples of blockchain use cases in the supply chain include:

1. Walmart employs blockchain to keep track of its pork sources in China. The blockchain records contain information about the source of meat, processing, storage, and sell-by date.
2. Australian vehicle manufacturer Tomcar employs Bitcoin to pay its suppliers. Currently, three partners in Israel and Taiwan take such payments.
3. Diamond-giant De Beers utilizes blockchain technology to trace stones from the digging point to the store. This way, the company dodges “blood diamonds” and ensures the consumers about the product’s authenticity.

Blockchain is just starting to enter the supply chain area. There are many exciting examples of its usage on the market, for instance, VeChain. There are also projects such as Origin Trail, Tael (formerly Wabi), Te-Food, Ambrosus, Accenture, etc.

Build a Real-time Digital Supply Chain

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/362535

According to a survey conducted in 2020 when the current crisis was at its peak, 75 per cent of organizations reported disruption in their supply chains. Around 44 per cent of them lacked a clear strategy to deal with it.

Modern-day supply chains are complex and expansive, thanks to diverse supplier networks, customers peppered across the globe, varying compliance requirements, and logistical challenges. Running operations smoothly and averting risks was hard already.

Knowing what’s happening in your supply chain is vital, especially during and after market disruptions like these. Supply chain leadership must be enabled to assess immediate tradeoffs between service levels and demand in order to make precise decisions and adapt to unexpected change. And that’s where supply chain visibility (SCV) plays a significant role.

According to a Gartner report, over 50 per cent of businesses have not yet actively started building a roadmap for supply chain digital transformation. Having a 360-degree view of the entire supply chain network is of paramount importance. The lack thereof can result in supply chains being disorganized, expensive and inefficient.

For example, consider tracking materials, components, assemblies, and end products from the supplier to the manufacturer and to the customer. The entire process typically involves multiple parties, technologies, logistical service providers and extensive paperwork.

Even if one cog in the wheel doesn’t work—say, an unforeseen delay in delivering a component to the production facility (and no one in the chain has real-time visibility)—it causes a domino effect and results in snags or delays in subsequent operations.

Key challenges in supply chain visibility

Lack of visibility

Businesses have struggled due to a lack of comprehensive visibility in their supply chain networks. Common challenges arising as a result include lack of supply chain planning, integration, and execution; inefficiency in organizing, processing, and managing data; limited availability of useful insights due to technological constraints; lack of synergy between automated systems and manual operations; inability to predict and prepare for risks; inconsistencies in the flow of data between stakeholders; and lack of a single data model to connect vital information from disparate planning and execution systems.

Real-time supply chain benefits

How does real-time supply chain visibility benefit stakeholders?
The year 2020 revealed the vulnerabilities in global supply chains. Transparency and visibility in all aspects of the supply chain are key to preparedness and responsiveness during crises.

For manufacturers, supply chain visibility can help in planning production operations and ramping up capabilities. Real-time visibility can give manufacturing companies excellent insights about production volumes, manufacturing inefficiencies, and raw material sourcing or procurement.

For suppliers, key information and real-time updates about order backlogs can help them strategize or tweak their inventory management processes.

For logistics vendors, visibility means real-time information about cargo batches, consignments, and delivery status. This can let them manage day-to-day operations and track the movement of goods more efficiently.

For the end consumer, it keeps them in the loop about the entire cycle, helping them stay updated about the dispatch and delivery status. Real-time visibility keeps them in the know and enhances customer experience.

From source to destination, having complete visibility of your supply chain is critical in order to ensure that the system works like clockwork. Real-time supply chain visibility can deliver benefits in areas ranging from production planning to order tracking and data integration.

Key features of Real-time Digital Supply Chains

Why real-time supply chain visibility has become indispensable
Here are a few reasons why supply chain visibility has become necessary for today’s businesses.

Transparency: Gaining visibility into the supply chain means ensuring complete transparency through the process. This is invaluable for all the different stakeholders involved.

Efficient execution: Getting real-time updates about every stage of the supply chain can enable enterprises to plan and execute strategies more efficiently.

Customer service: Real-time supply chain visibility can help organizations deliver and maintain exceptional levels of customer service. And it is all about customer experience, isn’t it?

Minimized inefficiency: Identifying and resolving issues in real time is integral to reducing inefficiencies and navigating potential obstacles.

Informed decisions: Supply chain visibility can help business owners make decisions that are backed by data and insights, thus ensuring smart planning, agile operations, and future-proof strategies.

Improved savings: The availability of real-time data and insights at different stages can help save costs and increase revenues or profits. EY consultants have seen 20-25 per cent reductions in inventory costs, thanks to improved visibility through the supply chain.

5 surefire ways to increase real-time supply chain visibility

Better visibility means assimilating all the data, processing it quickly, and delivering relevant information, in real time. Doing so allows stakeholders make smarter decisions and exercise more control over their respective processes in the supply chain.

Create a unified data model: The foundational element in increasing real-time visibility is a consistent, unified data model to extract, cleanse and load both internal and external data from across your supply chain. The data model enables automation, predictive analytics and new business models, and is the base for building the control tower over your supply network.

Establish a single AI-enabled supply chain control tower: If getting an end-to-end view of the supply chain is the challenge, consider an immersive supply chain management software. Complex demand-and-supply networks and volatile market dynamics beg for real-time visibility and unification.

Your best bet is implementing a single platform that consolidates and converts data into actionable insights. Leveraging AI-powered technology can help predict future outcomes and suggest appropriate plans of action, augmenting the planning, collaboration, and execution aspects of your supply chain.

Focus on customer experience: Customers today expect more from businesses on all fronts. Ironing out aspects such as payment, tracking, delivery and fulfillment can help you deliver a remarkable customer experience, thus improving customer loyalty, and gaining a competitive edge in the market.

This is only possible when you have a high degree of supply chain visibility.

Encourage your employees to adapt to new systems: It is also essential that you train business associates and employees to embrace new SCV technology, data visualization tools, and analytical dashboards and stay updated on the latest trends in this space.

Teams that are willing to adopt innovative solutions, use cloud-based systems, and establish strong workflow processes are more likely to stay on top of their supply chain visibility game.

Invest in automation, predictive analytics and virtual technologies: While reconfiguring your supply chain might seem nearly impossible, you can reinvigorate the system strategically. Digital technologies like robotic process automation (RPA), the Internet-of-Things (IoT), machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms have brought about a fresh wave of possibilities regarding what can be achieved with data.

Identify your major supply chain needs and implement the right mix of technologies to drive maximum benefits within your budget. Transform unstructured data into intelligent insights and automate the supply chain to help create tangible value. Aim for reduced manual effort, shorter turnarounds, improved decision-making, and better revenues.

To sum up, real-time supply chain visibility is absolutely priceless because it helps you not only stay on top of things today, but be ready for the future with a preemptive outlook. Trends such as automation, data-backed planning and forecasting, and real-time crisis management will prove to be key disruptors in the supply chain space.

Boosting the value of the supply chain by improving real-time visibility will continue to be a top priority for forward-looking enterprises that want to accelerate their operations, save costs, and emerge victorious from the slump.

Build Resilient Supply Chains with Blockchain - Consortia

https://www.consortia.io/blog/supply-chain-resiliency-in-difficult-times/

Supply chain resiliency in difficult times _ Consortia.io.pdf

Resilient supply chain can reduce impacts of business disruptions

In the context of manufacturing, for example, a factory can standardize the components it needs for the product it builds making it easier to source it from multiple suppliers. If that is a good idea for your manufacturing process then why not for your supply chain too? What if every one of your partners has the ability to share transactional data so that you are always up to date and have the ability to react swiftly to changes? What if everyone could join your supply chain consortium with ease and start transacting right away?

Hyperledger GRID for Supply Chains - Data Standards

https://www.hyperledger.org/blog/2019/10/22/hyperledger-grid-and-gs1-standards-harmonizing-static-and-dynamic-data

Supply chain professionals are all too familiar with the persistent challenges that plague the industry–a lack of inventory visibility, not having complete or trustworthy data to share with partners, or not enough business process consistency are a few issues that come to mind. However, somewhat ironically, it often takes industries joining together to collaborate to solve these issues that ultimately helps companies enjoy longevity and stand out from their competition.

It’s this “collaborate to compete” concept that has inspired so much discussion around what blockchain can do to help improve the supply chain. With a long history of facilitating collaboration to adopt new technologies and business processes, GS1 US has applied this open community spirit to our work on Hyperledger Grid, a collaboration with Cargill, Target, Intel and Bitwise IO. This project builds on Target’s earlier proof of concept based on the open source solution ConsenSource that was focused on certifying suppliers for its private label paper products. Experiencing success in this test, the retailer branched out to explore how Hyperledger Grid could be applied for better food traceability with supplier, Cargill.

For the past several months, the Hyperledger Grid team has investigated the role of GS1 Standards in blockchain development. We’ve discussed how to help create the ideal foundation for supply chain-based blockchain applications to flourish. The partners understand the need to standardize static data, such as a product’s Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) and core attributes, as well as more dynamic details like time, location and temperature readings that are important for transaction-based communications, such as procurement and track and trace. 

All of this is reflective of this overall nascent stage of blockchain’s life cycle where supply chain partners are still agreeing on what is “the right data” to share on a blockchain. Regardless of how they are piloting blockchain, many companies are finding that this is the time to say “enough is enough” and end the churning of poor data quality that has particularly plagued supply chain for many years. 

Several GS1 Standards provide consistency and structure to data transactions on a blockchain, increasing the likelihood that the intended outcome will be achieved: 

GTIN – This product identifier plays a critical role in global commerce, as it helps businesses manage items on both the physical and digital shelf. Unique like your own fingerprint, a GTIN is composed of numbers that identify the company making a product and numbers that identify the product. If every item is uniquely identified with its own GTIN, it retains an identity regardless of where it is in the supply chain. 

This number is what is encoded into a UPC and scanned at checkout, but is mightier than this function. Identification that is persistent beyond the four walls of the company is key for a blockchain implementation, given the technology’s immutability. A universal data language that starts with product identification can ensure that the right data is stored and communicated further down the chain. 

Global Location Numbers (GLN) –  Similar to GTINs, these are numbers that uniquely identify organizations and locations in the supply chain. GLNs give companies the flexibility to identify any type or level of location required for supply chain visibility. They can identify a warehouse, a retailer, a hospital, even something as specific as a store shelf. Or, they can identify a company’s legal or functional entities as they relate to a particular business transaction, for example as buyer, seller, or carrier. 

So many blockchain use cases today revolve around supply chain visibility, with specific focus on locations and origins. For example, Nestle teamed with Carrefour to put traceability directly into the hands of consumers using the IBM Food Trust blockchain platform. Carrefour shoppers can track Mouseline instant mashed potatoes from Nestle’s factory to Carrefour’s stores by scanning a QR code on the packaging with a smartphone. In addition to providing extended product details, such as the product’s production date and quality control parameters, it also reveals the locations of warehouses and the farms that supply the potatoes. Without standardized location identification, such a level of transparency would not be possible. 

GS1 barcodes – For data to be shared among trading partners (with or without a blockchain), it must be captured. More trading partners, particularly in the food industry, are leveraging the GS1-128 barcode to capture dynamic product information and serialized logistics data, such as expiration date and batch/lot numbers. Using these barcode labels, companies enable the automatic recording of product-specific information whenever a barcode is scanned, for a more real-time view of where products have been and where they are going. 

Electronic Product Code Information Services (EPCIS) – EPCIS is like a standardized application program interface (API). EPCIS acts in a similar way to capture and share information about the movement and status – the what, where, when and why – of products, logistics units and other assets in the supply chain. EPCIS simplifies the capture and description of physical events, allowing companies to more effectively rely on a single version of the truth about supply chain and logistics events. 

EPCIS is increasingly deployed in sectors such as fresh foods, healthcare, and logistics to improve efficiency. It is versatile, in that it can be used with a number of different data carriers, including GS1 barcodes and EPC-enabled radio frequency identification (RFID). Unlike “batch oriented” data transmission mechanisms, EPCIS is more suitable for blockchain because it more efficiently documents the potentially massive amounts of event-based data. 

These concepts from the GS1 System are being incorporated into Hyperledger Grid from the ground up. Adopting standards means putting structure around both static and dynamic data.  Without a common platform to share data, blockchain applications may fail to deliver on promises of consistent efficiency and visibility. GS1 Standards have an inherent credibility, neutrality and interoperability to help make data usable for blockchain today and scale for tomorrow. 

Engineering Blockchain Solutions

https://www.finder.com.au/why-more-people-arent-using-blockchain-according-to-ibm

The reason blockchain is so good at building these collaborative systems, Parzygnat explains, is because its inherent transparency and immutability essentially allows the creation of trust from nothing.

Compared to simple shared databases, he says, "the most notable difference is trust".

"Blockchain is a disintermediating technology, where each transaction is cryptographically signed, and always appended to an immutable ledger, which is visible to all participants, and distributed across boundaries of trust. All parties involved in a transaction agree that a) the transaction occurred, and b) that it occurred correctly – or the transaction is not committed to the ledger. Once in the ledger, it is set in stone."

Internal - VSM - Value Stream Mapping

define or update a VSM for blockchain services to set net gain over current solution

External - VCN - Value Chain Networking

define or update a VCN for blockchain integration services to set net gain over current integration solution

VCN - Value Chain Networks

1. bc for object networks ... vcn
2. model network: participants, roles, assets, contracts, transactions, processes, services, goals, decisions, value metrics
3. bc for each role on network
4. incentive model for buying, selling net data
5. network effect ( not nodes ) for a value chain network
6. target market governed by regulations
7. collaboration and coopetition models float all boats
   1. Design - for each major business activity in scope, review current and proposed impacts for each participant type - get metrics or pilot to validate !!
8. more

VCN Services Network

Model ( see above ) with DSL - Groovy

Assets ( data and services ) - Grails, CouchDB, MongoDB

Contracts - Grails, Fabric DLT

Transactions - Grails, Fabric DLT

Processes -

Potential Value Opportunities

VCN Engineering

Jim Mason

Congrats on your workshop ! I'm sure the solution is headed in the right direction now.

As usual, the technology ( in this case blockchain ) is only an enabler. The secret sauce is re-engineering the Value Chain Network correctly by looking at all the participants, their roles and the value existing services and relationships deliver.

in reference to:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anthony-day-866b8119_emirates-etihad-partners-with-swiss-blockchain-activity-6567969989112979456-9qYm

Coopetition - re-engineer the Value Chain Network

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1-thtmAb4RVWtQSMkoSoL3aX6EE4yCE6q

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anthony-day-866b8119_deloitte-so-you-want-to-join-a-blockchain-ugcPost-6568310039134695424-48O9

https://media.licdn.com/dms/document/C4E1FAQHT_OxVQuBRhQ/feedshare-document-pdf-analyzed/0?e=1566172800&v=beta&t=3gGjYEYtnbwPh8lj9FWk_0m6lqCyEnsCm_SCMmsJQs8

Ninety-two percent of executive respondents to Deloitte’s 2019 Global Blockchain Survey say they already belong to a consortium, or plan to join one within a year, citing cost savings and knowledge acceleration as the primary reasons.

Businesses often cultivate new ecosystems to develop unique products and services, and in solving shared pain points. As such, they often discover that they need to act in concert with other like-minded organizations by joining a blockchain-enabled consortium

Major Blockchain Improvements Coming

Article -

What are the enterprise needs from a blockchain perspective? Where do we want to see improvements so that we can fully use the benefits of decentralized ledger technology? Let’s separate the main requirements into four categories: platform; interfaces; infrastructure and network; and security and analytics.

Platform

• Operational resilience – ability to maintain uptime and connectivity even when some components fail, including several layers of protection and failover strategy against data loss and corruption.
• Pluggable consensus – ability to switch the consensus mechanism depending on the requirements without rebuilding the whole network.
• Broader off-chain data storage capabilities – support for encrypted data storage.
• Adaptors to allow for SQL-based ledger queries, which will make the broader developer community more comfortable working with blockchain.

Interfaces

• Enterprise integrations – pre-built modules and onramps for existing enterprise systems.
• Robust Oracles – ability to get real-time external data into smart contracts.Watch out for Chainlink.
• Integration with GraphQL, a Facebook-developed language that provides a powerful API to get only the dataset you need in a single request, seamlessly combining data sources.
• Identity federation – ability to authenticate with existing identity providers, which will facilitate faster adoption on the consortium level.
• Built-in privacy and permissioning features – for transactions, accounts, wallets, smart contracts and network participants.

Infrastructure and Network

• Ability to maintain peak performance at the network level – managing and operating hundreds of thousands of nodes while maintaining low latency and facilitating hundreds of thousands of transactions with guaranteed finality.
• Ability to scale and reduce network size on demand – auto-scale a network by adding/removing more validators or orderers.
• DevOps tools to make integration with existing IT systems easier and to make CI/CD build processes faster and seamless.
• Support for cross-network interoperability and cross-blockchain atomic swaps.
• Governance framework with an established and pre-determined transparent structure, rules of participation, a funding model, and financial incentives.

Enhanced Security and Analytics

• Detailed privacy controls over data, smart contract execution, and transaction visibility.
• Improved network monitoring with enhanced contextual meaning of the transactions, ability to troubleshoot on-chain events.
• SLA monitoring with backward compatibility of upgrades.
• Warehousing transaction history data, combining them with other off-chain data sources and making them available for BI reporting tools and other interactive dashboards.

Asset-backed tokens an option to fiat for products and services

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1D8xo2YT9_MStkQXHs8r0bJ4flbCsh6nr

Mobility use cases for blockchain

SDV for vehicles

Parts, Service Supply Chain

Car Leasing

Car payments

Supply Chain Logistics

Supply Chain Reverse Logistics

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-blockchain-can-improve-reverse-logistics-service-isaac-kunkel/

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ccZqEG6ONZ5BvwSe2T3bhaRyCZczNTye

When a customer returns an unwanted or defective product, it initiates a cascade of events that ripple all along the supply chain. Reverse logistics — keeping track of returned products and the reuse or disposal of their materials — is much more challenging than forward logistics.

 Reverse logistics cost companies nearly $750 billion a year, FreightWaves reports, and e-commerce growth continues to drive those costs upward. Fortunately, FreightWaves’ research also shows that those costs can be alleviated by a logistics blockchain strategy. Such a strategy will also help companies improve efficiency and document responsibility in all reverse logistics operations.

1. recalls
2. returns
3. disposals
4. spare parts management
5. warranty management

Blockchain can Improve Food Supply Chain

Blockchain can revolutionize agriculture - Tracy Levine

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/blockchain-revolutionize-agriculture-blockchainchamberofcommerce/

Everybody wants to live in a world without poverty, zero hunger, health, and well-being. And Every farmer wants to be able to feed his own family, and every farmer wants to run a profitable farm

 10 billion people are predicted to live on Earth by 2050; this is about 3 billion more mouths to feed than in 2010.

Globally we will need to produce 56% more food

people and technology can facilitate the People-to-People economy to make the goals of a sustainable and better ecosystem a reality for consumers and farmers.

potential to create better outcomes for both the consumer and the farmer

But disrupt is what we must do if we what to change outcomes

<< change is the not the same as improve 

The current system favors a few over the rural farmers

greatest impact areas for blockchain technology include Inclusion, Optimization of the Food Supply Chain, Fair Markets, and Traceability

blockchain impacts >> register farmers, document land rights, reduce unbanked, improve credit access, trusted marketplaces, grant tracking, optimize food production, adapt to climate change better, improve sustainable food supply chain practices, waste reduction, food traceability, connecting farmers to consumers ( tipping etc ), fair pricing with an open marketplace, support food safety regulation requirements, 

q>> what is the most effective, economic way to provide access to better technologies for underserved?

q>> what are the political challenges?

q>> who and how should these technologies be funded?

q>> what data should be shared? why? 

q>> what data should be private? why?

q>> "farmers can sell their produce directly on a platform that consumers can access without any intermediary involved" - how does that happen? are farmers standing up their own networks?

Asset Investments - CRE etc

MIT paper on blockchain in CRE - commercial real estate

https://media.licdn.com/dms/document/C4D1FAQHxvRAxfgRCrQ/feedshare-document-pdf-analyzed/0?e=1565377200&v=beta&t=C5Lhn8TrV5RET_hpHpOd1gSd-a0FXOckcaqwsdHWSbQ

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1iZAZI_TT8h2Hn20hfoRtdAo7O92769Kk

Gartner on blockchain realities and benefits

This article from Gartner does a great job of hitting 5 key opportunities for impact blockchain can offer to an an organization.

More often than not, well engineered, well managed solutions using blockchain that improve trust, transparency, privacy and coopetition in value networks will expand or replace existing solutions.

https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/cios-cant-ignore-these-5-realities-of-blockchain/

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BEex6cRxBddKZIPMP1tgT4Ywmt0kK8zH

Only 4% of enterprises expect that blockchain will be a game-changer for them, according to the 2019 Gartner CIO Survey. Only 11% of enterprises have deployed — or will deploy over the next year — even minimal, blockchain-inspired technologies.

But CIOs need to start thinking about what value blockchain can add to their organization and how to tackle the challenges over the next five years.

Reality No 1: Blockchain provides a spectrum of opportunities that evolve over time

Blockchain is not a monolithic technology. The term blockchain actually encompasses a wide range of technologies, from smart contracts to tokens to consensus models that will continuously mature and become available. In turn, CIOs should plan for incremental evolution of their own blockchain strategies. 

Blockchain technologies fall into four phases on the Gartner Blockchain Spectrum:

1. Blockchain-enabling: These are the building blocks of blockchain, including encryption and consensus algorithm, distributed computing infrastructures, tokens and others. 
2. Blockchain-inspired: Technologies in this stage combine some elements of blockchain, but lack two core elements:  decentralization and tokenization. 
3. Blockchain-complete: These solutions have all five elements of blockchain. They are decentralized, immutable, encrypted, tokenized and distributed.
4. Blockchain-enhanced: Alongside the five elements of blockchain, blockchain-enhanced is combined with technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) for more intelligent solutions. 

Reality No. 2: Blockchain can change your operating model, not necessarily your business model, in the next 5 years

While blockchain will eventually change the core of a business, in the next five years it will mostly affect how an organization executes its business. Focusing solely on how blockchain is being used today (i.e. efficiency and record keeping) is limiting. CIOs should look for opportunities to leverage blockchain technology for deeper business changes that can drive real value. 

Begin by looking for areas where blockchain could strengthen the organization’s value proposition, and propose projects that could truly differentiate the organization. Put real thought into how this technology could benefit the business, versus just purchasing a cool “disruptor” venue. 

Reality No. 3: Blockchain offers the ability to create a multi-asset digital economy

It’s time to think creatively about tokenization and digitally representing assets in the marketplace. For some organizations this will increase efficiency and for others it will enable entirely new markets. Consider how tokenization would be helpful in current business operations and in the future, and talk to ecosystem partners about tokenization’s  potential and challenges. 

Reality No. 4: Blockchain enables a new society, but doesn’t solve trust problems at all levels

One of the main elements of blockchain is decentralization. It removes central authorities from the process and enables a level of trust between two parties who have never done business together. This means that the definition of participant will expand beyond individuals and businesses to include smart contracts, distributed ledgers, connected things and DAOs. 

Blockchain will facilitate the interactions between all of these participants and enable a new society, but cannot solve all trust problems. For example, any goods that are physical or not completely digital, would gain limited (if any) trust value. Create a map that highlights potential gaps and weak spots, and don’t oversell blockchain technologies to executives as a solution to every problem. 

Reality No. 5: The programmable economy will set the terms of competition in the future

The reality is that blockchain and its core elements will radically alter not only the business world, but the world in which businesses exist. Blockchain will allow autonomous ecommerce and eventually a programmable economy. 

A programmable economy results from applying distributed computational resources, such as blockchain at scale, in a decentralized manner to support exchanges of monetary and nonmonetary value between people, organizations and artificial agents that have a legal standing equivalent to today’s corporations and individuals. This will eventually evolve into a digital society, as consumers change behaviors and adopt new practices. Organizations will need to develop the technology, but also the ethics and practices to exist in the digital society. 

MIT Sloan Review - Power of Blockchain - 2019

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/unleashing-the-power-of-blockchain-in-the-enterprise/

value-MIT-2019-sloanreview.mit.edu-Unleashing the Power of Blockchain in the Enterprise.pdf

MIT - 5 supply chain technologies that deliver competitive advantage

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/5-supply-chain-technologies-deliver-competitive-advantage

Challenges

• Global competition with lower labor costs becomes more aggressive
• International trade has rising tariffs, less free trade, more fair trade agreements
• Countries look to multi-source supply chains vs concentrating on Asia alone

Key technologies are:

1. IoT - drives intelligent systems that adapt quickly at lower cost for faster product flows
   1. predictive maintenance improves reliability
2. Blockchain - improves trust, transparency, automation, speed, reduced frictions
   1. build off natural networks
   2. companies can belong to multiple networks ( see TradeLens )
3. AI / ML - drives efficiency improvements
4. RPA - improves efficency, automation
5. 3D Printing for fast, local JIT production
6. Stronger cyber security solutions

US FDA FSMA section 204 on Food Traceability through Supply Chain for High Risk foods

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/us-traceability-in-the%20food-value-chain.pdf

How food organizations can move from ‘cost to comply’ to ‘invest to sustain’

A component of the FDA’s “New Era of Smarter Food Safety” blueprint, the rule encourages more investment in digital technology and traceability.3 By creating a “digital twin” of their supply chain, combining traceability and digitalization, companies can play a crucial role in increasing the effectiveness of recalls through the swift identification and removal of contaminated foods from the market.

GS1 US - provides barcodes used for labelling products, lots

https://www.gs1us.org/

• Getting and Using Barcodes
• Getting into the Marketplace
• Using Product Data
• Industry Insights

GS1 traceability standard

https://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/traceability/GS1_Global_Traceability_Standard_i2.pdf

GS1 using traceability standards

https://www.gs1us.org/content/dam/gs1us/documents/industries-insights/by-industry/food/guideline-toolkit/White-PaperHow-GS1-Standards-Support-Product-Tracing-Critical-Tracking-Events-Key-Data-Elements.pdf

recommended Key Data Elements (KDEs), which can be linked to CTEs and used to support product tracing. These include:

• Physical location that last handled the product, whether the manufacturer or not, and, if applicable, contact information for the broker who handled the transaction
• Incoming lot numbers of product received
• Amount of product manufactured or shipped
• Each physical location where cases were shipped (including individual retail and foodservice locations)
• Lot number(s) shipped to each location
• When (date/time) product was received and/or shipped
• Ingredients with corresponding lot numbers

To most efficiently identify, trace and track CTEs and KDEs, and share this information with multiple parties, businesses need to use a single, global, open system of supply-chain standards. The GS1 System of standards is the most widely used such system in the world; about 1.5 million businesses use GS1 standards to identify, capture and share product information within their own facilities and as it moves from trading partner to trading partner to consumer.

challenges in the food supply chain

distributed parties

different roles

different systems

different accounting

differences in regulations and compliance

costs

risks

effective cooperation and collaboration between competitors 

strategies to effectively integrate an efficient food supply chain for all stakeholders

distributed parties

different roles

different systems

• GS1 standards for data, transactions, codes, events

different accounting

differences in regulations and compliance

costs

• an effective 

risks

• collaboration between suppliers, logisitics, technology providers and regulators is key to efficient, useful solution architectures, strategies

effective cooperation and collaboration between competitors 

• share required data and events real-time while maintaining allowed private data
• define common, standard processes, events, transactions, master codes

F2P  - track, trace, trust, tip modules

Best example of a food supoly chain that has been successfully implemented end-to-end today with real-time integration of events with external ERP and other systems now?

f>> F2P <<. SWT AI automated mapping transaction translator for requests and related code tables with lazy fetch

automatically defines mapping schemas for source and target code tables that will be 100% deterministic and veriable real-time based on test data sets and outcomes

runs prior data sets from source system to test target system verifying successful transaction mapping recognition

failed transactions are suspended data

approval policy is based on ability successfully translate some or all of the transactions using the mappings to the target test sysem

GS1 epics system

ASN - advanced ship notices

CTE - Critical Tracking Events and KDE - Key Data Elements

GTIN

Lot code 

GS1 Implementation Checklist

https://www.gs1us.org/content/dam/gs1us/documents/industries-insights/by-industry/food/guideline-toolkit/Foodservice-Manufacturer-Implementation-Checklist.pdf

2024 03 07 Jeff Pribich: Supply Chain Digital Twin - Hlf SC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0HS8L1HP5M

• Introduction to Supply Chain Digital Twins with Blockchain: Jeff Pribich discussed the concept of digital twins in supply chain and trade finance, showcasing a demo to highlight how blockchain technology can enhance transparency, efficiency, and real-time tracking of goods and assets. The session aimed to provide a foundation for future advancements in supply chain management.

• Application in Aircraft Engine Monitoring: The demo included an example where IoT devices on aircraft engines transmit real-time data on wear and tear to a blockchain system. This setup allows for a detailed understanding of equipment condition, aiding in predictive maintenance and operational optimization.

• Advantages of Blockchain in Supply Chains: Blockchain technology offers significant benefits to supply chains, including smart contracts for automated payments, cross-border transactions, and enhanced security and traceability. These features address the limitations of traditional, ledger-based systems by providing a more dynamic, transparent, and efficient framework.

• Digital Twin Implementation for Coffee Supply Chain: A specific case study of a coffee supply chain was presented, illustrating how digital twins and blockchain can manage complex logistics from sourcing rare coffee beans to delivery. The integration of IoT, AI, and blockchain facilitates real-time updates, risk management, and process optimization, demonstrating a non-linear, flexible approach to supply chain management.

• Challenges and Solutions in Real-Time Tracking: The session highlighted the challenges of maintaining product quality and meeting delivery schedules in adverse conditions. By leveraging digital twins and blockchain, companies can proactively address issues like weather delays or transportation disruptions. A real-world scenario was discussed where a coffee shipment faced various obstacles, showcasing how technology can provide solutions to ensure product integrity and timely delivery.

Supplier Survey on Opportunities

supply-chain-key-questions-9-Common-Questions-That-Keep-Manufacturing-Owners-Up-At-Night.pdf.   link 

supply-chain-key-questions-9-Common-Questions-That-Keep-Manufacturing-Owners-Up-At-Night.pdf. file

1. How can I create quotes when I don’t know our true labor and material costs?

2. Where can I get a full picture of my inventory, so I stop wasting time and money? ( over time ) - allocations, on order, over under stock

3. How can I avoid preventable mistakes?  automated alerts on actual order events out of tolerance with planned events ( MAD etc ) - handler policies

4. Why does order entry take so long, and my staff makes so many mistakes? - who enters, how, automated info / edits at POE Point of entry - availibility, shipping - BWI mount pgm

5. How can I eliminate machine bottlenecks and keep employees and jobs on schedule? - smart schedule manager - SSM - WC resources, capacity, flows, lead times planned vs actual variances - reprioritization impacts on all orders, demand and supply forecasts

6. How can I get the price right each and every time? - pricing estimator for job types, policy & priority-based, overflow capacity & supply costs, frozen vs budget vs actual costs ( fixed, variable ), customer sales & profit history etc

7. How can I avoid cost over-runs? - planned vs actual performance on job orders, stock orders, flow - cost - resource - supply - quality issue event alerts w MAD limits

8. How can we increase customer confidence and ship on time? - SSM plans shipments to schedule due dates, can expedite work, can change ship methods w customer policies in place

9. Which of my jobs are most profitable, and where am I losing money? - know variable vs fixed costs vs budget for all orders ( custom, stock ) with fixed and overhead cost allocations by period to see variances

Potential Challenges

Supply Chain Impacts from Pandemic, US Government Errors

2020 - US Government delivers vaccine, funds to keep consumers buying

The Pandemic create massive challenges for supply chains that had not been seen since WW2

1. The great vaccine success from Drug companies and the US Gov in 2020 led to a stronger recovery
2. Fed very loose policies and purchases of Fed debt provided plenty of liquidity
3. The high Federal Unemployment benefits and PPP ( Paycheck Protection Program ) provided needed funds for consumers to buy when businesses closed

2021 - US Government creates recovery problems with massive deficit spending

1. Open borders creates permanent increase in welfare spending on a massive scale increasing Federal deficits
2. US Gov continued unemployment payments creates worker shortage and driving inflation higher
3. Some state governments don't open COVID restrictions though infections rates drop after vaccinations exceed 65%
4. US Gov pushes for massive deficit spending. If passed will drive inflation higher creating more supply chain problems
5. US Gov offers more foreign aid driving deficits
6. US Gov reduces programs to expand domestic manufacturing increasing supply chain risk
7. US Gov reinstates regulations increasing business costs driving inflation
8. US Gov proposes massive tax increases by all world governments to slow offshoring increases given higher US tax rates proposed
9. Increased crime rates in all cities lead to supply chain disruptions with cases not prosecuted

Jim's blockchain challenge list

1. Building consensus for a trust solution
   1. Understand what each party loses in a transparent, trusted network

2. Self managed consortiums

3. Scalable solutions
4. Costs of a shared trust solution over current solutions
5. Time frames to implement shared trust solutions
6. Personal data compliance
7. Regulations compliance ( KYC, FATCA, etc )

Consultants on Blockchain

Gartner on enterprise blockchain challenges

https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-10-mistakes-in-enterprise-blockchain-projects/

1. Misunderstanding or misusing blockchain technology
2. Assuming that current technology is ready for production use
3. Confusing a limited, foundation-level protocol with a complete business solution
4. Viewing blockchain technology purely as a database or storage mechanism
5. Assuming interoperability among platforms that don’t exist yet
6. Assuming that smart contract technology is a solved problem
7. Ignoring governance issues for a peer-to-peer distributed network

Candidate Solutions

Hyperledger Trade Finance and Supply Chain Group

Hyperledger Trade Finance and Supply Chain Group newsletter link

#02 - Weekly News Digest 20240115-0121

Good morning HL SC&TF SIG and a very happy new year to you all!

Please be informed that our latest Weekly News Digest has just been published on our Wiki page.
Head through this link to access it and enjoy the readings.:

https://lnkd.in/du3TMcBj
From this edition, you are going to find a section dedicated to the forthcoming events.

Please submit your own linked summaries and articles for publishing in next week’s news digest via the wiki: https://lnkd.in/db8Y6xPe

Ayhan Köseoğlu Sophia Brumann Barbara (Bobbi) Muscara, M.Ed) Nancy Min Arun S M Kamlesh Nagware Alfonso Govela Julian Gordon Sherwood Moore Robin Klemens Juan Da Rocha Szymczuk Prasanna Lohar Akhil Damodaran,PhD Venu Borra Jim Mason Vipin Bharathan Vipin Rathi Marvin Bantugan Dr. Neha Jain Jonathan Garcia Amine Echtati Harley Hermanson Shawn Chambers Virginia Mijes Martin Ruy Campos Dugone

International Trade Future Self Digital Twin ( well done )

https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/document/C561FAQGr77BiYQb7Kg/feedshare-document-pdf-analyzed/0/1627980605603?e=1628100000&v=beta&t=cUg4JrnMA_nlBYpzN_OgOflJlpaCAwvbTHuVTylOJFg

This file was converted from a PDF to a Google nicely by a Free online file conversion tool

https://onlineconvertfree.com/complete/odg-doc/

International Trade Future Self Digital Twin.pdf

IBM Food Trust Network

#TYS - Trust Your Supplier Network from Chainyard

https://www.techcentral.ie/ibm-and-chainyards-blockchain-based-trust-your-supplier-network/

IBM and blockchain consultancy Chainyard has announced a new permissioned blockchain-based network designed to improve supplier validation, onboarding and life cycle information management.

Along with IBM, Anheuser-Busch InBev, GlaxoSmithKline, Lenovo, Nokia, Schneider Electric and Vodafone are founding participants in the Trust Your Supplier (TYS) network.

“This blockchain initiative represents a great opportunity for Nokia to further enhance our suppliers’ experience and optimise the onboarding process,” Sanjay Mehta, vice president of procurement, Nokia, said in a statement. “Using the latest technology to address a classical challenge will be of benefit for everyone, and further increase the speed of using innovative solutions.”

Unlike IBM’s other blockchain-based networks, which can track everything from produce to jewellery from origin to destination, there is no product tracking on the new distributed ledger.

“TYS plans to add additional functionality over time as the network scales,” said David Post, managing director of Blockchain Ventures at IBM.

Onboarding and validation

TYS was built to act as a cross-industry blockchain network for procurement functions. The network’s first use case relates only to supplier onboarding and validation, according to Post.

Traditional methods of managing suppliers often involve cumbersome manual processes, which make it difficult to verify identities and track documents like ISO certifications, bank account information, tax certifications, and certificates of insurance throughout the lifecycle of a supplier, IBM said. By using a decentralised approach and an immutable audit trail based on blockchain, TYS is designed to eliminate those time-consuming processes and help reduce the risk of fraud and errors.

The ultimate goal is frictionless connectivity across supply chains.

“By shifting… supplier onboarding and validation to a process that occurs in the context of a business network, TYS will drive efficiencies for buyers and suppliers alike,” Post said. “Buyers will join the network as participants and be able to use [it] as a way to improve core procurement business processes as the network adds functionality.”

Limited availability

The Trust Your Supplier network, built on IBM’s Hyperledger Blockchain Platform and hosted on its cloud service, is currently in limited availability with existing participants. IBM said it plans to make it more generally availability later the third quarter.

IBM has more than 18,500 suppliers around the world; it will begin using the Trust Your Supplier network over the next few months to initially onboard 4,000 of its own North American suppliers. IBM Procurement anticipates a 70% to 80% reduction in the cycle time to onboard new suppliers, with a potential 50% reduction in administrative costs within its own business, it said in a statement.

James Wester, IDC’s research director for Worldwide Blockchain Strategies, said supply chains have become the model use case for distributed ledger technology and using it for onboarding a network of partners means their information becomes visible to every member.

“That information can be bank and payment information or compliance with regulations or anything else a company may need for a trading relationship. So having it all available to each node means inefficient and expensive processes to onboard and manage vendors that would normally be repeated by each individual company are no longer necessary,” Wester said. “Again, the members are leveraging the network to make the processes more efficient.”

Some industries may have higher requirements for onboarding suppliers based on regulations and compliance requirements, Wester noted, allowing blockchain to deliver a cheaper, more efficient way to eliminate redundancies.

Code contribution

IBM’s said its Fortune 500 company business partners who are onboarding suppliers will act as the private blockchain’s governance board, guiding future capabilities. Chainyard contributed “a lot of code to Hyperledger,” Post said and the company has been involved in building a number of applications for IBM’s networks.

As with all private blockchains, only permissioned suppliers can access the Trust Your Supplier network. It is designed to interoperate with buyers’ existing procurement systems and business networks to exchange relevant information with suppliers. Instead of being validated annually, data and information about suppliers is updated on the network continuously, which increases the real-time accuracy of the data, Post said.

Existing networks

The blockchain network can connect existing procurement networks by relaying necessary supplier data required for exchanging purchase orders and invoices, without the need for suppliers to enter it in multiple different networks and automating the on-boarding process. IBM’s own Supply Chain Business Network can connect to TYS using open industry programming interfaces for access to existing verified supplier information.

A buyer on the network can request information access to a supplier. Once a supplier approves the request and provides permission, the buyer can access the supplier’s data, validate it against data provided by third party verifiers directly onto the suppliers’ network profiles and then onboard them, according to Post.

“At this stage, relevant APIs transfer the supplier master data to respective ERP [and electronic] procurement tools,” Post said. “TYS will be the corporate identity layer that serves as an input into other blockchain networks and use cases. For example, trusted supplier information data could serve as an input to IoT use cases and networks where goods are inspected as they move along the supply chain.”

TYS recognized as a leader in Supplier Verifications combining AI and blockchain in key use cases

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/movee97_trust-your-supplier-featured-in-forbes-for-activity-7158144553626079232-9mrm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Recently Trust Your Supplier (TYS) was featured in two major publications i.e. the Harvard Business Review (https://lnkd.in/exfGU68J) and Forbes. I am very fortunate as the CTO of Chainyard to be associated with the platform from idea to today along with many others. I would like to add a few things that might stir curiosity among hashtag#procurement professionals and hashtag#CPOs.

TYS in many ways is transforming the way traditional centralized supplier management systems operate. The hashtag#blockchain acts as the trust anchor holding hashtag#supplier information and proofs. An idea that started as an enterprise blockchain use-case using hashtag#hyperledgerfabric proved that organizations with common supplier pools can share supplier qualifications with consent from appropriate data owners. hashtag#Data sharing is a use case pattern best suited for blockchain solutions bringing trust, transparency, and privacy.

Today, we are coupling that trust with hashtag#GenerativeAI to enable previously convoluted use cases such as response validation, supplier questionnaire completion, hashtag#FAQ assistant, supplier discovery, and risk classification to name a few. TYS is focusing on trustable enterprise AI by leveraging the power of the blockchain to lock the AI models that work to consume data and provide insights. TYS is also exploring how to develop more granular models that can string together to look at the supplier from different coordinates.

hashtag#ai | Hyperledger Foundation | IBM | Red Hat | Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) | OpenAI | hashtag#googleai | hashtag#llama2 | Hugging Face | Ethereum Foundation | Hedera | North Carolina Technology Association (NC TECH) | North Carolina State Bar | hashtag#awsai | Amazon Web Services (AWS) | Global Supply Chain, Logistics & Procurement Optimization | ProcureTech | Process Automation

https://lnkd.in/espTpdMj

<<jim

Really excellent use cases for AI to create value in the supplier ecosystem and leverage blockchain to control the quality of the AI models and data.

Forbes recognizes TYS for onboard compliance with blockchain

 Trust Your Supplier (TYS) is featured in Forbes for Revolutionizing Supplier Onboarding and Compliance with Patented Blockchain Technology

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevitasek/2024/01/26/reimagining-supplier-onboarding-and-compliance-with-blockchain/?sh=32a86de3428f

HBR - TYS solves the supplier onboarding problem

More Trust Your X models

Accenture: Identity drives consumers and producers in a circular supply chain

https://www.hyperledger.org/blog/2020/05/07/how-digital-identity-empowers-consumers-and-producers-in-a-circular-supply-chain

Problem

Vision

Imagine a future where more people could fully participate in the growing value of the green economy. With a powerful combination of blockchain, digital identity, payments and Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities,

Circular Supply Chain on Fabric

imagine a coffee farmer, for example. Using an app on their phone, the producer creates a profile, entering basic details like their name, date of birth, and the name of their coffee farm. At their cooperative, their identity is validated, using multiple security protocols.

The farmer’s identifier is then recorded on the blockchain, which acts as an index with links to all applicable data—including things like their payment details so they can receive tips or add attestation that prove their farm’s inspection history and certification status (organic, etc.). This makes it easy to locate, access and share information without the farmer’s personal data being stored on the blockchain. 

The app on the farmer’s phone is multi-factored and authentication-secured; it allows the farmer to generate their own set of public and private keys seamlessly which the farmer can then use to sign data they send to others.

The farmer is always in control of their data, determining which information is part of their public profile or what details will be linked to a particular product as it moves through the supply chain. They can also use the app as a management tool to keep track of product registrations, check their tip balance, renew certifications and prepare a harvest for shipment.

When a shipment is ready and registered, a unique identifier is automatically generated, embedding information about the coffee, the farmer and their farm (like its organic certification), and then scanned, captured, and verified at the point of origin.

Sensors can then be added, and registered, to the product at the cooperative warehouse. These sensors can monitor temperature and humidity within the warehouse to ensure product quality. And if the conditions go out of the optimal range, an alert is generated, prompting the warehouse to take preventative actions before the product quality is compromised.

These details, and each step the shipment takes along the journey, are scanned, added to the ledger and traceable as it moves across the supply chain—from farmers to processors to grocery store shelves and, finally, to end consumers. Now a simple scan not only tells consumers the story of their sustainably-sourced coffee and the farmers that grew it but empowers them to reward the farmer via a secure tip.

The benefit is a circular supply chain that goes beyond where it started and creates a closer connection between consumers and small growers. Processors, distributors, wholesalers and retailers can trace product provenance, creating market differentiation for sustainability, food security and quality. The hope is that by aligning incentives through an immersive customer experience that fosters informed purchasing decisions, we can empower an inclusive economy that encourages the actions to mitigate environmental impact and benefit people.

Questions

1. How do we know ALL processors of this batch at each step have been automatically recorded via sensors on this supply chain for this lot?

Takeaways

IBM- Maersk Shipping Blockchain - Trade Lens

TradeLens Opportunity 

Global trade is burdened by paper-based processes. Information is held in various formats across dozens of service providers along the supply chain, requiring complex, cumbersome, and costly peer-to-peer messaging.

TradeLens Solution

TradeLens Core is the sole applciation currently offered within the Marketplace.

The foundation of TradeLens is its global supply-chain ecosystem made up of shippers, freight forwarders, ports and terminals, ocean carriers, intermodal operators, government authorities, customs brokers and more.

Existing solutions are integrated via OpenAPI specs

Network Activities

1. on board participants ( join TradeLens )
2. setup partner relationships
3. setup subscriptions for an organization, port, country, province, terminal
4. shippers publish shipping events thru the Events Publisher API
5. subscribers can receive shipping events thru the Events Subscription API
6. documents are shared as needed securely with proper access controls for the standard document set ( https://docs.tradelens.com/documents/document_sharing/ )
7. the events allow an automated workflow across the network for the documents

TradeLens Impacts

TradeLens is already handling more than 700 million events and 6 million documents a year, expediting decision-making and lowering the administrative frictions in trade.

TradeLens integrates different participant types in the supply chain

https://www.tradelens.com/

TradeLens integrates multiple roles on the supply chain

financial service providers, suppliers, distributors, shippers, freight forwarders, ocean carriers, intermodal carriers, warehouses, ports, terminals, customs, 

Formal roles define who can write what and who can read what from the ledger

TradeLens - data, API specs

https://docs.tradelens.com/reference/data_sharing_specification/

Companies set up partnership relationships

https://docs.tradelens.com/how_to/business_partners/

Suppliers can form relationships

They have already been added to the network

They setup a private relationship with standard contracts with custom terms

Basic functions include:

• An organization can search and invite the companies that are also part of the TradeLens platform to become business partners.
• An organization has the option of being “searchable” or not.
• An organization has the option to either accept or reject the partnership requests.
• An organization can refer to a partner using a party identifier, either user specified, or system generated.

Once a business partnership has been established, the party identifier can be used to give the party access to a trade object, like a consignment or transport equipment. Either a user specified party identifier or the system generated party identifier can be used.

Tradelens architecture summary

https://docs.tradelens.com/learn/solution_architecture/

The Ecosystem includes the TradeLens participants, such as ocean carriers, ports, 3PL, customs authorities, and shippers, that connect to, provide data to, and use the platform.

The Platform is accessible by an open API and brings together the ecosystem through a set of open standards. It enables the industry to share information and collaborate. Blockchain and cloud technologies power the platform. The platform securely hosts the TradeLens data.

The Marketplace is an open platform that allows both TradeLens and third-parties to publish fit-for-purpose services atop the TradeLens platform.

Platform Services

The TradeLens Platform employs a cloud-native approach. APIs deliver TradeLens functionality and are public-facing and documented. The Platform Services layer uses containerized, horizontally scalable microservices linked together using a publish / subscribe service. Multiple persistence layers are used, including object storage, document databases, relational databases, and blockchain, depending on the type of information being persisted and the manner in which it is accessed. Managed Services, including PaaS and DBaaS components, are also used to leverage cloud economies of scale and drive efficiencies.

The Platform includes integration with external systems ( EDI / XML and more )

Tradelens Blockchain

Blockchain is used to address trust challenges, provide a shared view of the truth, and provide an immutable audit trail. When managing data that does not involve such challenges, TradeLens employs traditional persistence layers. TradeLens uses the IBM Blockchain Platform, which is based on Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source permissioned blockchain where the peer members, or “Trust Anchors”, are known to the network based on cryptographic identities.

Organizations can have peers in multiple blockchains.

All orgs are in Tradelens

Other blockchains are organized by channel and only the organizations in that group participlate in a channel

The Blockchain network topology will ensure segregation across ocean carriers. In particular:

• TradeLens and participating ocean carriers can each host and manage a Blockchain node.
• Each node includes the Blockchain platform components as well as dedicated Blockchain-managed document storage for that node.
• A channel is established for each participating ocean carrier.
• Sensitive information including documents are distributed only to those nodes participating in a channel; this means that none of an ocean carrier’s customer information will be distributed to other ocean carriers.
• Documents are stored on a single node only, and are accessed at runtime by other nodes on a channel as permissions allow.

Tradelens Data Sharing Specifications

https://docs.tradelens.com/reference/data_sharing_specification/

TradeLens Data Sharing Specification and the TradeLens Swagger

Tradelens Transaction Document Flows

https://docs.tradelens.com/how_to/actionable_doc_flows/

tradelens-d121-docs.tradelens.com-Actionable Doc Flows.pdf

Questions on Tradelens Architecture

1. Would private data worked as efficiently here as channels?
2. Is the Tradelens doc set a good standard for blockchain solutions?

FreightChain - AirAsia - freight forwarder bid, book, aggregate over multiple airlines

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anthony-day-866b8119_airasia-launches-blockchain-air-cargo-transport-activity-6657935441204961280-F6if

AirAsia has created a Blockchain network for air freight bidding, booking and aggregation across multiple airlines, creatively named: FreightChain... The platform enables shippers and freight forwarders to view the airline network and make bookings in real-time, using a bidding process to allow shippers to opt for the cheapest plan or the fastest route to transport their cargo. The bids are then validated using blockchain. “We deliberately launched Freightchain during this period of uncertainty within global supply chains, caused by the coronavirus pandemic,” said Vishal Batra, CTO of Freightchain. “Agile software platforms like Freightchain help to connect uneven supply and demand amidst a rapidly evolving environment. Trust and transparency are needed now more than ever.” Logistics and supply chain domains have been a clear focus for decentralisation, data aggregation and clearing platforms, and this seems like another exciting one about to take off 🚀🌔

GSBN - Global Shipping Business Network- 2022 - Hyperledger Fabric

https://www.hyperledger.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Hyperledger_CaseStudy_GSBN_Printable_111422.pdf

GSBN-Hyperledger_CaseStudy_GSBN_Printable_111422.pdf file

GSBN allows a suite of solutions for some of trades biggest challenges, including cargo release, trade finance, and bills of lading • Paperless, efficient, and transparent blockchain-based solution • Provides a single, immutable source and record of data • Harnesses trusted data directly from the shipping industry via GSBN • Improves end-to-end operational efficiency and transparency

Roll out Strategy

• 1. Recognize the risk of not digitizing
• 2. Build the operating system with Hyperledger Fabric
• 3. Design and deploy the first use case: Cargo Release
• 4. Work on second use case: Trade Finance
• 5. Enable the third use case: Electronic Bill of Lading (eBL)

Results

1. Time for cargo release reduced from days to hours
2. Improves shipping container turn-around time, reducing port congestion and pollution
3. Served over 10,000 customers since March 2021 launch
4. Speeds of over 100 transactions per second
5. More than 1 million shipments handled

“We need a new digital utility infrastructure ‘grid’ to enable
data sharing. As a digital utility infrastructure, GSBN’s goal
isn’t profit, but rather increasing global trade powered by
the platform.”
— Edmund To, Chief Technology Officer, GSBN

Building the GSBN community is a challenge

GSBN is working to get a critical mass of shipping lines, terminals and banks to join its platform. Then it can remove barriers to trusted collaboration among disparate and competing market participants. It will continue recruiting other global trade organizations to join the GSBN platform.

Shared Fabric Node Instances create a logical network different than the physical nodes

To address concerns from members and users about data sovereignty and data localization, GSBN decided to deploy nodes across multiple jurisdictions, including China, the US and Singapore. These nodes all connect to form a shared enterprise blockchain network. While each founding GSBN member has a dedicated Hyperledger Fabric instance, many members choose to leverage the shared instances provided and managed by GSBN.

GSBN Platform model

GSBN stack

GSBN built its operating platform in partnership with Oracle, Microsoft, AntChain and Alibaba Cloud and used Hyperledger Fabric as the foundation because it’s one of the leading distributed ledger frameworks for building an enterprise-grade, permissioned blockchain.

https://www.antchain.net/productsAndSolutions/productsDetail/TaaS

AntChain TaaS is a Blockchain-based traceability solution combined with the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to enable trust, increase efficiency, and provide end-to-end transparency on information along the supply chain.

TaaS connects physical and information flows using IoT technology, stores information in an immutable and tamper-proof manner on Blockchain, and links fragmented supply chain processes from end-to-end and different stakeholders involved through transparent information sharing. 

Blockchain offers a way to record supply chain information on a decentralized and immutable ledger with all stakeholder‘s acknowledgment, and hence serves as a resilient, verifiable, and accurate single source of truth.

Enables full visibility, track and trace throughout product lifecycles, starting from raw materials, for each product by creating a unique digital identity.

Provides the flexibility to use either standard or customized tracking process templates to capture the right data at the right stage for the right product.

Gains valuable insights on many aspects of the whole supply chain, for example, products distribution map, consumer geographic distribution, sales trending analysis, etc.

Mobility

Xride - decentralized identity, transactions, payments

https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-news/89464/blockchain-based-e-mobility-project-in-pilot-phase/

https://medium.com/@T_Labs_Events/september-11-2019-t-labs-to-launch-the-xride-decentralized-emobility-pilot-651cf758a383

Telekom Innovation Laboratories (T-Labs) have announced the launch of Xride, a first-of-its-kind, blockchain based e-mobility pilot.

In the centralised mobility systems of today, users are required to register new identity and payment credentials with each service subscription. Verification can be considered lengthy and costly, with users required to manage multiple logins for different mobility providers, and providers required to store this sensitive user data, which is not only expensive but can be subject to hacking.

Xride is powered by a T-Labs’ blockchain operating stack, known as ståx. Ståx enables the creation of decentralised and secure Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem infrastructures – or ecostructures – which will be critical for the evolution of machine-to-machine economies. In such ecostructures, producers and consumers connect in a decentralised manner and share trusted data. 

Step-by-step guide for Example

sample code block

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