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Coming from a logistics background, coordinating tracability data is painful within a company, even with help of ERP like SAP. But when you need tracability acr

Coming from a logistics background, coordinating tracability data is painful within a company, even with help of ERP like SAP. But when you need tracability across an industry, it becomes almost impossible. I had professional experience in an industry where we had to go to the plants to ensure rolls of paper certified from suppliers using responsibly-managed forests were physically separated from the non-certified ones. We needed the paperwork coming from China, then another one from the transformation plant in Morocco, then in customer warehouses across Europe. An external protocol that would provide universal tracability, usable by any actor of the chain, seem like a great solution to a real problem. Blockchain provides some "neutrality", ie no need for each actor to find its own certificate provider (I imagine that service shops would help larger companies set up their systems, but the back-end would be common across all actors). I'm not very convinced by pseudo-decentralized apps in most domains, but in logistics... very bullish !

m00n 9y ago
I never quite got my head around the value proposition for distributed ledgers in logistics ('smart warehouses / supply chains') and manufacturing ('industry 4.0'). Say you want to trace eco paper rolls around the globe. What could the blockchain do for you? Who are the nodes/miners/coins in this application? When you suspect some intermediate in the paper chain to exchange eco paper for cheaper ordinary paper, how does distributing the information that he has X rolls on store prevent this scenario.
- fsloth 9y ago
  I think the OP stated that blockchains would alleviate the bureaucratic pains of international trade considerably. As bureaucracy requires labour, which is costly, I feel the value proposition is plausible. Another feature is not related to inventory. Ledgers that have acute accountability features attached, where some stakeholders may have incentives to fake the records. Like, for example transport truck driving schedules. Drivers are allowed only to drive so much, and there are penalties involved if the drivers don't rest enough. The main accountability measure here is the driving ledger. Whose maintainer has incentives to fudge it (the driver or the employer of the driver).
  - donmatito 9y ago
    these are very good additional points, thank you
- donmatito 9y ago
  Sorry, I replied somewhere else, I don't feel like copypasting, but roughly the blockchain would not prevent false declaration. It would 1) considerably simplify the non-fraudulent papertrail 2) provide an auditable record for investigation in case of either fraud investigation or certification audit
- JamesLeonis 9y ago
  Logistics are a great place for this technology, but first you must purge your mind of Cryptotokens and their economics. They aren't applicable for a logistics use case. To understand this, first you have to understand why we structure mining. In the case of Bitcoin or Ethereum, you need a method that allows any arbitrary computational device to verify and add to a given blockchain. In lieu of trusting that device, the blockchain makes it do a massive amount of busywork, called mining, to prove it isn't bullshitting the network. Different implementations have different busywork, but it's designed to make it hard to change the network by arbitrary devices. This is why we can allow any untrusted device on the network. In the case of logistics, we are already operating under some amount of trust. This is through a mechanism of certification of goods, suppliers, verifying the goods are what they say they are, and the verification of those approvals and certifications. Even in a trusted environment, managing that coordination of certifying and verifying is slow, bureaucratic, and grows with the size of the logistic network. Additionally, many supply chains generally certify new entrants before allowing them to contribute. This creates a barrier to entry when establishing trust in the same way busywork creates a barrier for devices. Then there are whole units of auditors that go through and recheck all those certifications to make sure the whole chain is authentic with regards to the goods moving through it. Blockchain technology is a mechanism of creating certifications (signing a transaction) and verifying those certifications (miners/verifiers on a chain) that can operate in a decentralized but coordinated way. It allows for the whole system to better coordinate information and certification that used to be done manually. Did you notice I never mentioned tokens?
  - shanghaiaway 9y ago
    You also did not answer the question. How do you verify that the physical objects the digital certificate is attached to, is actually attached to the things it is meant to certify, and not replacement counterfeit?
    - JamesLeonis 9y ago
      The same way you verify it now. The technology does not change the process of physically inspecting the product. It makes it far easier to coordinate the paperwork of certifying and verifying. At it's heart logistics is a global concurrency problem. The "locks" we use now are large sprawling bureaucracies that manually coordinate the transfer of information among many independently moving agents. Getting information into and out of this organization is a tedious, labor-intensive, and time consuming process. The technology that empowers cryptotokens is an alternate computerized concurrency management for this kind of information transfer and lookup that doesn't rely on a central organization or system.
CPLX 9y ago
OK great. Now how do you get "the blockchain" to know which paper rolls went into which shipping container.
- sp527 9y ago
  I've heard the logistics value prop from a number of people, and not a single person has ever been able to fully articulate an answer to "okay walk me through how it works". I once literally went through 5+ iterations of this with a friend that devolved into hand-waving.
  - bjelkeman-again 9y ago
    Provenance seems to be making headway. Not finding a detailed, recent white paper, but here is some reading: https://www.provenance.org/news/technology/blockchain-series-part-2-blockchains-vs-centralised-systems https://www.provenance.org/news/technology/blockchain-series...
- donmatito 9y ago
  how about scanning a barcode or a RFID reader ? This information is already read and stored in ERP. Is it such a technological step to imagine a RFID reader or an ERP module that would write the information in a blockchain? I don't see the objection here. The blockchain would be a decentralized papertrail accessible to all actors of the supply chain, down to the end consumer ideally, instead of the current nightmare of shipment papers, siloed ERPs and so on
  - Mithorium 9y ago
    lazy actor: I print out the barcodes, and stick them on the paper rolls at random bad actor: I manufacture the cheaper rolls, and stick labels for the expensive ones on, and scan them How will "the blockchain" prevent either scenario
    - Drdrdrq 9y ago
      Lazy actor: receiver will scan the codes and see that data doesn't match, thus they can't trust the sender. Bad actor: unless you intend to use rolls by yourself, what do you gain? You can't sell the better rolls as such, because you have broken chain of trust. But such arguments lead nowhere. Of course you can come up with scenarios which can be misused. The real challenge (and one that is being solved by lots of people in crypto world - well, at least those that aren't consumed by greed) is finding scenarios that work. The ability to store information cheaply and immutably can change many industries, but technology must be deployed in such way that it makes sense.

m00n 9y ago

I never quite got my head around the value proposition for distributed ledgers in logistics ('smart warehouses / supply chains') and manufacturing ('industry 4.0'). Say you want to trace eco paper rolls around the globe. What could the blockchain do for you? Who are the nodes/miners/coins in this application? When you suspect some intermediate in the paper chain to exchange eco paper for cheaper ordinary paper, how does distributing the information that he has X rolls on store prevent this scenario.

fsloth 9y ago
I think the OP stated that blockchains would alleviate the bureaucratic pains of international trade considerably. As bureaucracy requires labour, which is costly, I feel the value proposition is plausible. Another feature is not related to inventory. Ledgers that have acute accountability features attached, where some stakeholders may have incentives to fake the records. Like, for example transport truck driving schedules. Drivers are allowed only to drive so much, and there are penalties involved if the drivers don't rest enough. The main accountability measure here is the driving ledger. Whose maintainer has incentives to fudge it (the driver or the employer of the driver).
- donmatito 9y ago
  these are very good additional points, thank you
donmatito 9y ago
Sorry, I replied somewhere else, I don't feel like copypasting, but roughly the blockchain would not prevent false declaration. It would 1) considerably simplify the non-fraudulent papertrail 2) provide an auditable record for investigation in case of either fraud investigation or certification audit
JamesLeonis 9y ago
Logistics are a great place for this technology, but first you must purge your mind of Cryptotokens and their economics. They aren't applicable for a logistics use case. To understand this, first you have to understand why we structure mining. In the case of Bitcoin or Ethereum, you need a method that allows any arbitrary computational device to verify and add to a given blockchain. In lieu of trusting that device, the blockchain makes it do a massive amount of busywork, called mining, to prove it isn't bullshitting the network. Different implementations have different busywork, but it's designed to make it hard to change the network by arbitrary devices. This is why we can allow any untrusted device on the network. In the case of logistics, we are already operating under some amount of trust. This is through a mechanism of certification of goods, suppliers, verifying the goods are what they say they are, and the verification of those approvals and certifications. Even in a trusted environment, managing that coordination of certifying and verifying is slow, bureaucratic, and grows with the size of the logistic network. Additionally, many supply chains generally certify new entrants before allowing them to contribute. This creates a barrier to entry when establishing trust in the same way busywork creates a barrier for devices. Then there are whole units of auditors that go through and recheck all those certifications to make sure the whole chain is authentic with regards to the goods moving through it. Blockchain technology is a mechanism of creating certifications (signing a transaction) and verifying those certifications (miners/verifiers on a chain) that can operate in a decentralized but coordinated way. It allows for the whole system to better coordinate information and certification that used to be done manually. Did you notice I never mentioned tokens?
- shanghaiaway 9y ago
  You also did not answer the question. How do you verify that the physical objects the digital certificate is attached to, is actually attached to the things it is meant to certify, and not replacement counterfeit?
  - JamesLeonis 9y ago
    The same way you verify it now. The technology does not change the process of physically inspecting the product. It makes it far easier to coordinate the paperwork of certifying and verifying. At it's heart logistics is a global concurrency problem. The "locks" we use now are large sprawling bureaucracies that manually coordinate the transfer of information among many independently moving agents. Getting information into and out of this organization is a tedious, labor-intensive, and time consuming process. The technology that empowers cryptotokens is an alternate computerized concurrency management for this kind of information transfer and lookup that doesn't rely on a central organization or system.

CPLX 9y ago

OK great. Now how do you get "the blockchain" to know which paper rolls went into which shipping container.

sp527 9y ago
I've heard the logistics value prop from a number of people, and not a single person has ever been able to fully articulate an answer to "okay walk me through how it works". I once literally went through 5+ iterations of this with a friend that devolved into hand-waving.
- bjelkeman-again 9y ago
  Provenance seems to be making headway. Not finding a detailed, recent white paper, but here is some reading: https://www.provenance.org/news/technology/blockchain-series-part-2-blockchains-vs-centralised-systems https://www.provenance.org/news/technology/blockchain-series...
donmatito 9y ago
how about scanning a barcode or a RFID reader ? This information is already read and stored in ERP. Is it such a technological step to imagine a RFID reader or an ERP module that would write the information in a blockchain? I don't see the objection here. The blockchain would be a decentralized papertrail accessible to all actors of the supply chain, down to the end consumer ideally, instead of the current nightmare of shipment papers, siloed ERPs and so on
- Mithorium 9y ago
  lazy actor: I print out the barcodes, and stick them on the paper rolls at random bad actor: I manufacture the cheaper rolls, and stick labels for the expensive ones on, and scan them How will "the blockchain" prevent either scenario
  - Drdrdrq 9y ago
    Lazy actor: receiver will scan the codes and see that data doesn't match, thus they can't trust the sender. Bad actor: unless you intend to use rolls by yourself, what do you gain? You can't sell the better rolls as such, because you have broken chain of trust. But such arguments lead nowhere. Of course you can come up with scenarios which can be misused. The real challenge (and one that is being solved by lots of people in crypto world - well, at least those that aren't consumed by greed) is finding scenarios that work. The ability to store information cheaply and immutably can change many industries, but technology must be deployed in such way that it makes sense.