Real-time Tracking

By Srikar Vuyyuru

Because of the complexity of today's globalized economy, much of the consumer and retail industry is heavily reliant on human operated systems and sometimes even verbal communications to confirm tracking and inventory data. However these systems and signals are highly prone to miscommunication and or human error. With the emerging technologies provided by block technology, this problem is almost completely alleviated.


“Prior to DL Freight, over 70% of invoices were disputed. Today, less than 1% of invoices have discrepancies, and these disputes are easily flagged and quickly resolved. Gone are the days of payments taking weeks or months; carriers are now getting paid on time.”, is what Harvard Business Review had to say about Walmart Canada’s use of a new program, DL Freight to generate business and shipping related documents with the use of blockchain technology. This technique is not only to do your paperwork for you, but it can also be as easy as scanning an item into inventory and writing its ID onto a block on the Ethereum platform to enable you to track it across the country. In fact, IBM Food Trust has launched a private enterprise blockchain that's being used in the supply chains of over 500 companies. It applies this method to the real world in order to intuitively track and assess breakouts of bacteria or spoiled goods in real-time.


Primary potential benefits

  • Increase traceability of material supply chain to ensure corporate standards are met

  • Lower losses from counterfeit/gray market trading

  • Reduce paperwork and administrative costs

Secondary potential benefits


  • Strengthen corporate reputation through providing transparency of materials used in products

  • Improve creditability and public trust of data shared

  • Reduce potential public relations risk from supply chain malpractice

  • Engage stakeholders


Sources:

https://www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/tradevistas/digital/blockchain-tracking-trade/

https://hbr.org/2020/05/building-a-transparent-supply-chain

https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/operations/articles/blockchain-supply-chain-innovation.html

https://aws.amazon.com/blockchain/blockchain-for-supply-chain-track-and-trace/

https://www.pymnts.com/blockchain/2022/blockchain-in-action-how-to-track-anything-in-real-time/