Supply Chain Archives – Hyperledger Foundation

Nov 16

GSBN Builds Global Trade Operating Platform with Hyperledger Fabric as the Foundation

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Fabric, Supply Chain

Read the full case study here.

Global trade is systemically important to the world’s economy. In 2021, it represented $28.5 trillion. Yet, it hasn’t evolved along with the digital transformation of other industries.

Perhaps that’s because evolution seems like an insurmountable task. Processes are complex. Documents and information flow continuously — but asynchronously — between parties across the globe. Many processes still rely on paper and legacy systems.

This lack of digital, on-demand data makes it difficult for the shipping sector to respond to global events, like the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 or the supply chain disruptions in 2021. In short, existing global trade processes aren’t efficient nor resilient enough.

GSBN, a not-for-profit backed (and governed) by a collection of major shipping lines and global terminal operators, set out to create the trusted data sharing infrastructure needed for efficient, digital and resilient global trade. To do so, GSBN built a new global trade operating platform using Hyperledger Fabric as the foundation.

The initial launch of GSBN centered around a Cargo Release offering aimed at improving shipping container turn-around time, reducing port congestion and pollution. Since its launch in March of 2021, more than 10,000 customers have used Cargo Release to get real-time updates on over 1 million shipments.

In September 2021, GSBN formed the Trade Finance Advisory Group with Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited (BOCHK), DBS Bank and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) to develop digital solutions to help improve the financing process for banks. To break barriers in data sharing that were hindering financing approvals for trade companies, especially SMEs, GSBN created an application for consent collection. It allows banks to source data directly from shipping lines so they can verify information based on a single source of truth.

The third application for GSBN is electronic bills of lading (eBL). In June 2022, IQAX eBL application, built on top of GSBN, obtained approval by the International Group of P&I Clubs. The eBL application provides a digital channel for all parties to access real-time data on the shipping process. It also guarantees the security, accuracy, and authenticity of data. And it ensures the data on the blockchain network is traceable to a single source. This application has already been adopted by three shipping lines and one bank.

The Hyperledger Foundation team worked with GSBN on a case study that details the business and technical drivers and decisions that went into the creation of GSBN as well as key results to date. It also lays out how GSBN, as CTO Edmund To puts it, “will expand the global trade ecosystem by creating bridges to new market participants like banks, FinTech’s, and other consortia and launching new solutions.”

Read the full case study here.

Aug 19

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Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group takes first place in the 2022 IBM Call for Code Green Practices Accelerator

By Bertrand Rioux, Director, Two Ravens Energy & Climate Consulting Blog, Climate, Special Interest Group, Supply Chain

IBM just announced the winning prototype to Reduce Methane Emissions with Supply Chain Tokens built by members of Hyperledger’s Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group (CA2SIG) has been awarded first place in the 2022 IBM Call for Code Green Practices Accelerator. Each year, the IBM Call for Code challenge seeks the most creative and innovative solutions to help address issues of sustainability.

**See the 2022 IBM Call for Code Announcement here (Time Code: 3:52)**

Reducing methane emissions by the oil and gas industry is a vital step to achieving global greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets in the short-term. More than 5% of global emissions are caused by leaked, vented and flared methane gas during oil and gas production. This is a valuable natural resource with a market value exceeding $50 billion.

The team working on the winning prototype is developing an emission certification (token) platform for oil and gas production to support sustainable financing aligned with Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) investing. An ESG investor portal will help integrate verified methane emission metrics into performance-based financial instruments. Learn more about the Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting SIG solution here.

The prototype uses Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to support the management of production and emissions data. This includes both private and public network components. The former includes Hyperledger Fabric emission and product data channels to support the verification of high volume data from oil and gas facilities. Using Hyperledger Cactus, these enterprise data networks are securely connected to Ethereum-based decentralized applications. This combination of DLT protects the privacy and commercial sensitivity of industry data, while providing verifiable metrics that can be tracked and traded as part within the measurement economy for GHG emissions.

What’s next?

In the near-term, our team will focus their efforts on organizing public geospatial data on oil and gas assets and production into a structured database. This is connected to our ESG investor portal to compare a registry of oil and gas assets, and their operators, against benchmarks for U.S. oil and gas production.

In the long-term, our team is designing an emission certification platform coordinated by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that will bring together verification professionals, standard setting bodies, data providers, and other industry stakeholders (e.g., regulators, voluntary carbon market providers).

Our vision is to provide the solutions needed to create an efficient marketplace for climate data that will incentivize corporations to decarbonize their supply chains by unlocking the combined incentives provided by green investment, government regulation, and consumer demand. To help accomplish this in the ongoing development of this prototype, the certificates issued to oil and gas producers are not only transferred to their downstream consumers such as energy and other commodity providers but extended into new certificates that can help provide a total value chain perspective on the waste emissions in the oil and gas supply chain.

Congratulations to CA2SIG community members Bertrand Roux, Si Chen, Arezki Djelouadji, and Sherwood Moore!

Want to get involved? We invite you to visit our Oil & Gas Methane Reductions Page, join our bi-monthly Peer Programming Calls, and/or our Bi-Monthly Climate Action and Accounting General Meetings!

Dec 14

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MineHub and KrypC Leverage the Power of Hyperledger Fabric 2.2 to Transform Mining and Metals Supply Chain

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Fabric, Member Case Study, Supply Chain

Read the full case study here.

Nearly 1.8 trillion USD of metals and minerals move across the world every year from mines, through ports, along transport lines, to processing plants and, ultimately, to the end users. This chain includes hundreds of companies making millions of transactions. Many of these still use manual processes—actual or digital—that require staff resources to process.

MineHub wanted to create a decentralized collaboration platform to solve this problem. The company envisioned a solution that would transform the supply chain workflows and processes for the mining and metals industry. Its solution wouldn’t just improve the practical day-to-day operations. Once in place, this robust, agile platform would help users mitigate damage from unpredictable global disruptions, reduce costs and make more profit due to higher efficiencies and end-to-end visibility of their data.

MineHub was setting out to connect hundreds of companies — from large, international corporations to small, local businesses. Each of these organizations would have unique needs and requirements. To deliver this platform, MineHub realized it needed the power of Private Data Collections (PDCs) that became available with Hyperledger Fabric 2. PDCs deliver critical functionality for bringing together a large group of diverse companies with differing needs and commercial interests and allowing them to exchange business critical data in a secure, private, and scalable manner. They would also need the flexibility to add new organizations and manage them dynamically.

Enter KrypC, a company that understands enterprises that want to work together across interconnected workflows need a single version of truth and that blockchain technology can provide this. From the beginning, KrypC has been focused on leveraging Hyperledger Fabric to build technologies that help enterprises adopt and develop blockchain solutions. The team there was working towards addressing the very challenges MineHub was looking to solve through its Hyperledger Fabric layer 2 platform, KrypCore. After a few discussions, it became clear a partnership between them made sense.

KrypC’s configurable KrypCore platform offers the agility to quickly create and add new functionalities to a decentralized system and to deploy them seamlessly in smart contracts. KrypCore offers a unique and unrivalled approach to performing asynchronous system updates and upgrades amongst a wide variety of users operating on entirely different IT infrastructures.

With their toolsets, KrypC is able to offer users of decentralized applications a seamless solution to manage security updates and enable rapid addition of new features. By solving for this challenge, MineHub was able to redirect their focus on the user functionality and business value they wanted to unlock for its customers.

Hyperledger Foundation worked with KrypC and Minehub on a case study that details the business and technical challenges of building a platform that connects thousands of companies of diverse sizes without prior relationships and the roles each company plays in the solution. In addition, the case study delves into why and how the release of Hyperledger Fabric 2.2 was key to getting the MineHub to market and what comes next for the supply chain platform.

Read the full case study here.

Oct 01

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Ledger Leopard Uses Hyperledger Besu to Power a Scale-Up’s New Digital Approach to RTI Tracking

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Besu, Member Case Study, Supply Chain

Most of the products we use and consume every day are transported on Returnable Transport Items (RTI). Durable and reusable, RTIs like crates, pallets and containers allow producers to move goods efficiently and sustainably. However, tracking RTIs is often a logistical nightmare. There are billions of palettes circling around the world, and trillions of total RTIs on the move.

When Milou Klooster joined her family’s Netherlands-based smoked fish company, Vishandel Klooster, she soon discovered how much time, money, and energy her team was wasting on tracking RTIs. When she searched for a solution to this problem, she found there wasn’t any.

She resigned from the company and partnered with consultant Yves du Bois to develop a digital approach to the problem. Together, they founded RTI Blockchain. Their aim: a reliable app that connects all members of the supply chain together in one dashboard and provides a real time overview of the status of their RTIs.

Working with blockchain-as-a-service company Ledger Leopard, they developed the RTI Dashboard—a simple and reliable way to manage load carrier administration. Using blockchain technology, the RTI Dashboard gives poolers, suppliers, shippers, and receivers real time insights on their RTI data and enables them to share information privately and transparently. Every link in the supply chain is connected, and the interface is as intuitive as mobile banking.

When it came time to consider a platform, the Ledger Leopard team first considered Ethereum Liberty because it allows for private transactions. Then they considered Hyperledger Fabric. They also considered a combination of Ethereum and Hyperledger.

Ultimately, they chose Hyperledger Besu, an open source Ethereum client for developing enterprise applications that need secure, high-performance transaction processing in a private network.

One key goal was making sure the RTI Dashboard was as easy and intuitive as online banking. Users don’t need to know anything about blockchain to use it. Registration for all users is free. There is no subscription fee, no maintenance and support fees, no cost whatsoever for users. Senders pay per item they ship over the platform at a rate of 0.0005 euros per item.

Once a company registers in RTI Dashboard, they can invite their partners to join with a link. Once the partner clicks on the link, they’re invited to explore the platform and how it works, all at no charge.

RTI Blockchain suggests users start small. “Take one supplier and use RTI Dashboard for all transactions. Once they see what the system can do for them, they’re more willing to move their entire RTI administration process to the system,” says co-founder Yves du Bois.

Hyperledger worked with RTI Blockchain and Ledger Leopard on a case study that details the goals and approach for building this solution, the growing feature set that users are helping to shape and the next opportunities the start-up is eyeing for this dashboard.

Read the full case study here. For more details, tune into the Wednesday, October 20, discussion with Olivier Rikken of Ledger Leopard on supply chain traceability.

Jul 29

Love2

Enterprises Can No Longer Take Shortcuts with Climate and Social Impact, and Distributed Ledgers Provide Proven Accelerators for Change

By Anthony Day, Blockchain Partner, IBM Blog, Climate, Hyperledger Fabric, Supply Chain

One of the few benefits we have seen emerge from the recent COVID-19 pandemic is an amplification of focus and desire for accountability around corporate and government sustainability, or “ESG” (Environmental, Social and Governance) metrics.

However, sustainability must move beyond commitments and transition into action. Sustainable action. Sustainable from process, technology and commercial standpoints; and helping those in a position of power (who have not traditionally been used to prioritising investments based on ESG metrics) to make difficult choices to drive action.

Furthermore, as we look at “earth system” trends like CO2 emissions, surface temperature, ocean acidification, tropical forest loss and many others we see exponential increases in harm and damage over recent years. In other words, acceleration.

Speaking of action, if we are to make any dent in these exponential trends, we need to aim for a more profound impact than incremental improvements to individual corporate metrics such as a10% reduction in plastic packaging, 15% increase in use of recycled materials or move to hybrid vehicle fleets. Aiming higher and working together across entire value chains is key and so is creating systems that enable collaboration, tracking, reporting and remuneration. The latter is important as businesses must remain commercially sustainable, or we will not see participation and investment amongst small and medium-sized enterprises..

Despite what some vendors say , there is no “single app” that addresses the wide spectrum of sustainability requirements as the use cases are varied and more will emerge.

Many corporations are embarking on internal “data gathering” exercises to assess their Scope 1 emissions (direct emissions from owned or controlled sources) so they can have a fact base from which to then take action in a couple of years. Often they are quietly hoping Scope 3 emissions (other indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain) will go away. In my opinion, this approach is far from the immediate and meaningful “action” needed to drive change.

At the core, we need to enable more connected supply chains from which we can develop and co-create applications that share, automate, track and integrate with a multitude of different processes and IT systems.

Blockchain and distributed ledgers have proven themselves to be appropriate architectures for these multi-party platforms as they bring together identity, standards, automation of activity, aggregation of data, scalability, transparency and, importantly, incentivisation. That’s a lot more than just a “fancy data store.”

We can re-use or take inspiration from existing multi-party systems that are already addressing known climate and social issues, work together as networks of companies to have greater impact. And we can start today, not in two years’ time when we’ve completed our internal data audit.

Here are some examples of where distributed ledgers, and Hyperledger Fabric in particular, are already being used to address ESG issues that are cross-industry, cross-border and can be used as impact accelerators.

Waste Reduction – Nearly half of all fruit and vegetables produced globally are wasted each year (source: United Nations): IBM Food Trust originated as a platform for managing food safety, but the data stored on the platform across farmers, transport companies, manufacturers and retailers allows for more granular tracking of freshness, dwell time, conditions in storage and transit, which can be used to optimise distribution, reduce waste, and even extend shelf life.
Material Circularity – Production of materials we use every day account for 45% of the CO2 emissions (source: EuroParl): Plastic Bank has created a circular economy platform around collection, processing and sale of “Social Plastic” to large manufacturers, with a focus on empowerment and financial reward for collectors in developing countries. Mitsui and Asahi Kasei have also recently announced development of DLT-based circularity marketplaces to record, track and incentivise their suppliers and customers to increase re-use of plastic and chemical feedstock and provide transparency to regulators where taxation of imported plastics is coming into force.
Social Impact – Almost half of consumption-related emissions are generated by just 10% of people globally (source: Project Drawdown): Farmer Connect has its origins in traceability of commodities such as coffee and cocoa and provision of self-sovereign identity applications for farmers. Interestingly, Farmer Connect is using its “first mile” digitisation expertise to bring customers (and brands) closer to social impact projects in developing countries and enable crowdfunding of local projects.
Renewable Energy Consumption – Share of renewables in global electricity generation was 29% in 2020 (source: IEA): Renewables present an opportunity for low-cost, abundant energy but have challenges in scaling, particularly in balancing supply and demand. Equigy is a multi-country “crowd balancing” platform comprising energy companies in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. Equigy uses blockchain technology to access, via aggregators, new sources of electricity from the owners of consumer-based devices and is working towards incorporating use of decentralised storage with private or commercial vehicles and batteries.
Carbon Capture – In practice, some sectors will simply not be able to achieve net-zero emissions without carbon capture (source: IEA): Newlight Technologies recently launched a range of “regenerative, carbon-negative” fashion products made from air-captured carbon, and with the origin of the carbon capture and authenticity of individual products stored and traceable on a distributed ledger. While manufacture of sunglasses is not analogous to all sectors, the ability to track, certify and share material properties in increasingly regulated supply chains is becoming a critical core competence and can be a further step towards scaling voluntary carbon markets.

The important factor here is not that blockchain applied to these domains solved a problem but rather that these climate and social issues are multi-party problems that require entities, activities and processes to be supported by technology to drive and sustain change.

Hopefully, in this article we have demonstrated that the problems are clear, real and addressable; that multi-party collaboration platforms are feasible to implement; and that there are technology accelerators available to enterprises and governments that are proven and scalable. So there should be no further cause for inaction…

Cover image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Jul 27

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#HyperledgerSupplychain: Spotlighting Hyperledger-powered solutions strengthening supply chains around the world

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Fabric, Supply Chain

Supply chains are the driving force for industries around the world. And, increasingly, blockchain technologies are at work strengthening supplies around the world as well. In honor of #HyperledgerSupplychain month, we are spotlighting a range of Hyperledger-powered solutions that are in production adding traceability and transparency to vital supply chains and and saving time and money for the companies that rely on them:

Cargo Release

A few months ago, IQAX announced it has been officially commissioned by the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) to build and operate the world-class blockchain for real-time data sharing by container carriers and ports/terminal operators using blockchain technology for more transparent end-to-end supply chain visibility. With the first production application for Cargo Release available in China leveraging Hyperledger Fabric blockchain running across Oracle Blockchain Platform and Alibaba Cloud BaaS nodes, it now provides a paperless, highly efficient and transparent solution. Connecting everyone involved at port of import including shipping lines, consignees, their agents and terminals and eliminating the need for paper, simplifies data exchange and shortens operation time among parties with real-time updates, cutting the time for cargo to be document-ready for release from days to a matter of hours. This live deployment builds on an earlier pilot with Tesla. By eliminating manual processes, the use of Cargo Release has seen significant savings in processing times from two to three days to one to two hours, while also reducing the risk of fraud and theft due to counterfeit or stolen documents, which are no longer possible with digital documents generated and authenticated via blockchain.

Circulor

Electric vehicle producers around the world are responding to pressure from their customers to ensure responsible sourcing of the raw and recycled materials used in their batteries. Circulor’s blockchain traceability solution deployed on the Hyperledger Fabric-based Oracle Blockchain Platform is already used at scale for Volvo Cars and Polestar EVs for the traceability of cobalt used in the battery units they get from the world’s largest battery manufacturer CATL, LG Chem, and other vendors. Tracing the sources all the way from the artisanal mines in the DRC and during the journey they take first to various refineries and ultimately to CATL and LG Chem facilities and then, as part of the battery units, to EV manufacturers was only the beginning. Other materials, such as mica insulators, are now being traced as well to ensure ethical sources free of child labor and other abuses.

With all this refining and global shipping, an electric vehicle supply chain can generate a tremendous amount of CO2 before the car even leaves the assembly line. With the mapped supply chain and Oracle Blockchain Platform to support them, Circulor is now adding CO2 emissions traceability to enable EV manufacturers to pinpoint largest sources of these emissions and focus on reducing them to make EVs truly carbon-neutral.

DL Freight

DL Freight, an invoice management and auto-reconciliation solution from DLT Labs, is operating as the world’s largest full production blockchain solution for any industrial application at Walmart Canada. The remarkably flexible platform was configured and ready to satisfy the demanding needs of Walmart in only 60 days. The Hyperledger Fabric-powered system tracks deliveries, verifies transactions, and automates invoices in real time. Reconciliation between Walmart and its fleet of carriers is no longer necessary because they are all working off the same information and calculations made possible by the smart contract functionality of Hyperledger Fabric.

SmartArgiHub

Oracle and Trace Labs are driving safety and payments in an EU milk supply chain using Oracle Blockchain Platform (OBP) and OriginTrail Decentralized Network (ODN). Milk producers selling their products through a cooperative depend on complex agreements and lab test results for calculations of the price they get for their product. Now in an EU-sponsored SmartAgriHub innovation project, the Hyperledger Fabric smart contract deployed on OBP transparently and in real-time determines and triggers the payments that the cooperative makes to each farmer based on the trusted milk analysis data stored on the ODN and the contractual terms managed on the Hyperledger Fabric ledger in OBP.

TrustFlow

Trustflow from IDS is an enterprise supply chain management application that helps multiple stakeholders in a supply chain consortium network view and access business data and provide controls and privacy. Powered by Hyperledger Fabric, Trustflow integrates with ERP systems to provide one decentralized application with seamless cross-organizational workflow optimization and order management and end-to-end visibility of goods at the pallet, batch and saleable unit level. Initial deployments include pilots in the pharmaceutical industry, where it has enabled firms to cut costs and improve operational efficiency in terms of cross-organizational interactions.

Chime in on social with your own examples of Hyperledger in action in the supply chain space here using #HyperledgerSupplychain.

Supply chain updates from Hyperledger Global Forum

At Hyperledger Global Forum, there was a range of business, technical and demo sessions focused on supply chain developments and deployments, including:

UAE Trade Connect – UAE’s First and Largest Blockchain based Trade Finance Platform – Waqas Mirza, Avanza Innovations

Blockchain Interoperability Demo with Cactus – Peter Somogyvari, Accenture

Oceans Plastics Recycling Solution using Hybrid Blockchain – Hitarshi Buch, Wipro Technologies

Supply Chain Security – Tackling Compliance, Fraud and Counterfeiting – Mohan Venkatamaran & Isaac Kunkel, Chainyard

A Blockchain-enabled Solution to Drive Material Traceability Along the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain in Asia – Daniel Laverick & Zhang Haisheng, Zuellig Pharma

We also have an active community for those interested in participating and contributing to supply chain solutions. The Hyperledger Supply Chain Special Interest Group (SIG) is a global collaborative of logistics and supply chain professionals united in advancing the state of the supply chain industry through the implementation of enterprise-grade technology solutions utilizing the Hyperledger greenhouse of business blockchain frameworks and tools.

Cover image: www.epictop10.com at Flick, CC BY 2.0.

Jul 26

Love1

How innovative supply chain solutions can increase blockchain adoption

By Naresh Jain, Co-founder/COO, Snapper Future Tech Blog, Hyperledger Fabric, Supply Chain

Challenges in Supply Chain

Supply chain processes are complex and involve many players, heavy documentation and large data sets. Businesses across supply chains work in silos and communication between them is largely through email or phone calls causing issues related to efficiency and costs, data availability and redundancy, transparency and reconciliation, and fraud and trust.

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Blockchain Use Cases in Supply Chain

With the advent of blockchain technology, CEOs and CIOs have paid increasing attention to mitigating industry challenges through technology adoption. Supply chain focus area are

Track and trace of assets through supply chain
Provenance to find origin or authenticity of products
Circular economy to reduce carbon footprint by secondary use or recycling products
Customer engagement through loyalty programs using tokenization
Financial transactions through crypto tokens and smart contracts
Automation by capturing and recording data of physical movements using IoT or from different sources.

Blockchain Success Stories in Supply Chain

There are various case studies and success stories that have proved the potential impact of blockchain technology across a number of supply chain use cases:

Mumbai Transport implemented TradeLens to boost efficiency and cut costs

~50% improved communication efficiency of documents like commercial invoices, bills of lading
Lower transport and logistics costs
Shorter lead time and less frequent delays

Walmart brought transparency to food supply chain

Time needed to trace their provenance went from 7 days to… 2.2 seconds!

Chainyard and IBM reduced new vendor risk and drastically cut onboarding

Vendor onboarding cycle time cut from 60 days to 3 days
For buyers: 50% less cost to verify and maintain a supplier’s information
For sellers: much faster time to first sale

Honeywell Aerospace built an online parts marketplace

$4 million in sales in less than a year
Purchase time reduced from days to minutes
Future boost to anti-counterfeit measures

DLTLabs and Walmart eliminated the root problems that caused invoice disputes

Reduction of invoice disputes from 70% to 1.5%
The error threshold for each transaction went from $10 per invoice to $0 per invoice.
Timeline to approve carrier invoices from 6-8 weeks, but often extended over many months, went to less than one week.

Mindtree reinvented its loyalty platforms and merchant onboarding

Merchant onboarding time reduction from more than 20 days to one day
Higher visibility to all parties in the transactions
Eases merchant renewal processes
Standardized AML & KYC processes
Increased cost savings due to automation

Siam Cement Gp saw procure to pay process time cut by 50% and cost reduced to 70%

Blockchain Frameworks in Supply Chain

Most of the supply chain projects are implemented using Hyperledger frameworks, especially Hyperledger Fabric. Hyperledger Fabric is a blockchain framework implementation hosted by Hyperledger, which is part of the Linux Foundation. Hyperledger Fabric is a secure and scalable open-source distributed ledger platform developed with permissions and privacy as its core tenets. Unlike permissionless, distributed blockchains, Hyperledger Fabric leverages a modular architecture that provides enterprises plug-and-play solutions for private transactions and confidential contracts within a network of multiple vendors. This allows an organization to bring together all the stakeholders within its multi-partner ecosystem under one architecture to automate and implement universal workflows across the network.

Hyperledger Fabric is a mature framework that is well suited to deliver low latency, high throughput, and fast send rates along with privacy controls needed for supply chain solutions.

Current State of Blockchain Adoption in Supply Chain

Blockchain benefits are quite visible in the above mentioned success stories. That is why there are many initiatives going on for supply chain-related implementations of blockchain across industries. But it is taking time for these projects to go into production. According to Gartner, “80% of Supply Chain Blockchain Initiatives Will Remain at a Pilot Stage Through 2022.”

Snapper has been working with customers across industries for supply chain solutions. We follow a robust process-of-implementation approach to blockchain, and use a design thinking process to identify the right use cases and the benefits the customer would get. We realized that the customers are very enthusiastic about the use of technology as part of their digital transformation. However, the understanding level of the technology is very limited for most of the customers before engaging with us. Through our design thinking process, customers get to have a good understanding of how blockchain works, what are the benefits and the implementation challenges. One of the major challenges supply chain leaders realize is that building an ecosystem/consortium of stakeholders is a requirement for a blockchain network. As developing an ecosystem is a difficult task and involves high risk, customers are cautious about investing in such solutions and thus delay the decision to implement blockchain solutions. They are in a dilemma whether to take a lead in creating the network or be part of the existing network. Also there are only limited options available for an organization to join an existing blockchain network for their industry. Customers want to see more and more success stories to validate their decisions.

What is Needed For Faster Adoption of Blockchain Technology

Implementation of blockchain technology not only helps organizations achieve digitalization goals but also creates opportunities for new business models. An organization has to decide whether it wants to grab this opportunity of taking the lead in creating a new consortium, driving new business models and increasing efficiency by adopting blockchain now, or wait for the technology to mature and be a follower.

Only large-scale enterprises can influence implementation of complex supply chain solutions. It is very difficult for medium and small-scale enterprises to create a blockchain-enabled supply chain network.

Faster adoption of blockchain can be achieved through the network effect by inclusion of all sizes of enterprises, faster implementations, cost-effective solutions, more and more success stories and maturity of the technology.

Snapper Future Tech is working on an innovative supply chain traceability solution designed to help the community achieve faster adoption. Snapper’s supply chain solution, SnapChain, is designed to empower an enterprise to create its own network without any major investment or risk. Business networks can be small or big, and can be led by any organization throughout the supply chain. Onboarding a business partner on the network is easy and flexible. This is being achieved by creating a metamodel architecture with configurable modules, transactions types and transaction screens

SnapChain Architecture

SnapChain architecture gives an organization the flexibility to host a node and have its own network of partners with a dedicated ledger using a private channel to maintain data privacy. Each organization has one endorsing, one committing peer and one ordering node. Each transaction is endorsed by Snapper peers and organization peers. Smaller organizations can be part of a common organization maintained by Snapper.

Cover Image Copyright Thai Subsea Services Ltd.

Oct 28

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Hyperledger-powered supply chain solutions in action

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Fabric, Supply Chain

As 2020 has shown, supply chains are both vital and vulnerable, underscoring the need for trust and transparency. To meet that need, blockchain is playing an increasingly prominent role in many supply chains, and Hyperledger technologies underpin most of the biggest and best known networks, including FoodTrust and TradeLens.

But there are many other examples of Hyperledger technologies in action in the supply chain space. Read on for details about a range of #HyperledgerSupplyChain solutions that are powering supply chains and the businesses that rely on them:

Accenture’s True Supplier Marketplace

Inaccurate supplier master data and incomplete risk assessments cost businesses an average of 15 million dollars per year. What if onboarding a vendor and managing their data could be done more effectively to ensure compliance? Imagine a solution where onboarding times drop from weeks to hours, while adherence to risk assessments improves.

With this supply chain transformation in mind, Accenture used Hyperledger Fabric to develop a double-sided procurement marketplace to source, onboard and maintain supplier relationships. By giving suppliers ownership of their own data, the solution creates a shared source of truth between parties that improves risk compliance, speeds time to onboard, and removes the manual effort required to maintain siloed systems. Accenture’s True Supplier Marketplace is live and available now.

DL Freight™

Developed by DLT Labs, DL Freight™ is the national standard for freight invoice management for Walmart Canada and its national network of third party transportation companies or carriers. The system tracks deliveries, verifies transactions, and automates invoices in real time across the network of up 70 different carriers in Walmart’s supply chain.

DL Freight is built on Hyperledger Fabric, an open source platform that allows Walmart to bring together the carriers within its multi-partner freight operations under one architecture to automate and implement universal workflows across the network. At the same time, through Hyperledger Fabric’s unique “channels” feature, the solution allows independent and protected relationships for each organization directly between itself and Walmart, and the information is not accessible to other members.

Within DL Freight, carriers are the peers, and the governance of the platform is controlled by the applicable contracts, as in any conventional business. The difference is that the freight, legal, and finance departments of Walmart, as well as all the carriers, have all agreed that the solution fairly and accurately represents those agreements so it processes them automatically. As a result, it has removed the guesswork and any real potential for dispute over the interpretation of agreements.

Telefónica’s e2e Supply Chains

Today’s supply chains are increasingly global and complex with hundreds of companies involved in the manufacturing and distribution of products and with logistics that expand across borders. In this context, collaboration has become key to streamline operations. To manage the complexity, Telefónica launched a project to transform the way it collaborates with third parties by blockchain-enabling its e2e Supply Chain solution to make it faster, simpler and more efficient.

Trust is at the heart of that collaboration, and, to build that trust, Telefónica selected Hyperledger Fabric as the underlying technology that serves as a secure and transparent single source of truth for all.

Telefónica started using the blockchain-based supply chain solution to support one of its core products – CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) – the routers, decos, and other devices that provide connectivity and services at home to their customers. The company manufactures over 15 million serialized devices a year that are then distributed and installed by a field force of over 30,000 technicians.

Telefónica put this blockchain platform for operations into production in 2019 in Brazil, where the program delivered ROI in under six months.Telefónica is planning to extend the use of its blockchain-enabled e2e solution to the rest of its Fixed Operations and other products in the coming months.

Trust Your Supplier

Just named as the 2020 Winner of Blockchain Revolution’s Innovative Entrepreneurship in Blockchain Award in the Supply Chain Applications category, Trust Your Supplier is an innovative solution developed in a partnership between IBM and Chainyard to address the inefficiencies and risks associated with supplier information management.

During this time of a global pandemic, many buyers are procuring goods and services in the context of a supply constrained situation. This has resulted in substantial challenges in vetting and onboarding new suppliers.

Built on Hyperledger Fabric, Trust Your Supplier provides both a cross-industry network and a blockchain secured platform to speed onboarding and minimize risk.

Blockchain provides cryptographic security that allows suppliers to control access to their single digital identity. Buyers are able to view profiles of their connected suppliers, as well as a timeline of all the various activities that have taken place with this supplier. Writing this information onto the blockchain allows for an immutable record of all the events that have taken place with this supplier and are fantastic for supporting auditing capabilities.

Trust Your Supplier is bringing speed, accuracy and most importantly trust, to supplier information management and the supply chain needs of today’s world.

Join the conversation about solutions and applications in the supply chain market with #HyperledgerSupplyChain this month on social channels. Or get involved with the Supply Chain Special Interest Group.

Cover image by Free-Photos from Pixabay.