13 ms·

As someone working in the space, I'd like to respectfully disagree: All players on the market right now, us included, don't focus on replacing, but facilitating

by 9dev 5y ago

As someone working in the space, I'd like to respectfully disagree: All players on the market right now, us included, don't focus on replacing, but facilitating human communication by using algorithms. The supply chain is in bad need of a digital overhaul, because things are fundamentally intransparent. Even big companies have no idea where their suppliers came from, what expensive lunch invitation actually got a deal started. With a sudden, global market disruption, they start to notice entire factories stand still if a single, tier-3 supplier is unable to deliver in time. The solution is insights into supply chains, and visibility for suppliers, so people can make business more easily.

hef19898 5y ago
Sure, that idea of transparency is around since someone came up with the SCOR model. The reason why I, personally, don't like the whole algorithm and ML things in Supply Chain is that I saw it more often than not coming from people with limited operational experience jumping on the latest bandwagon / hype train. And I have yet to see supply chain modelling that resulted in overall lower lead times and inventory levels. I am all in for using those tools so, but with discretion. E.g. if optimization software comes up with lower safety stock levels than what you have, use those. If the calculated levels are higher than actual ones, stick with the actual ones. I highly doubt so, that companies that failed to control their supply chains properly pre-COVID disruption would be able to benefit from increased insight into sub-tier suppliers. Those that do benefit from that insight are those that were already better than most before and will be even better after those insights are gained. One of the reasons nobody seems to be able to catch up to the likes of Apple, Amazon or Proctor&Gamble.
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  I have always assumed that the big use of blockchain is for supply chain management. If "everyone" had access to the same chain, would that not bring "everyone" up to the level of at least knowing where the stock actually was? Edit: ok let me show how little I understand or have thought about this. Its possible for every primary producer to create a new "chain" for each of its products. For factories this is in the bounds of possible. At this point everyone who touches it could use a public / private key hand off to confirm receipt and then append to the chain. I suspect this will hit massive problems that I don't know about, but the principle makes sense. I do not know if the incentive align - but globally the idea of being able to track every single manufactured good across the world seems like it should be profitable.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    The biggest issue with blockchain is the need to match the virtual blockchain to the physical goods. Once that link is lost, which happens every day, the blockchain is basically useless. Also, you uave to trust whomever that what the blockchain says is correct. Sure, you can audit these things on site, but then I don't see the benefit of a blockchain. Also, supply chains are made up of often times competing players. The amount of insight one could gain on other companies from a comolete blockchain is, IMHO, a big hinderance as well.
    - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
      I think my only answer is ... yes but ... but the value to every other player in the supply chain is so high, it feels inevitable
  - 9dev 5y ago
    Blockchain feels like the right answer to the problem, but it's just infeasible in practice. Who do you trust to handle the blockchain for the entire world? Having a chain that maps the entire global trade will quickly grow to unwieldy proportions - if you need a data center to even store the petabytes of the chain's data, the entire point is moot: You'd again have to trust large vendors. If you instead opted to have smaller chains, perhaps on the goods category, country, or even reseller level, the market would fragment. We'd soon end up with multiple chains claiming different things, rendering the whole endeavour obsolete again. And we didn't even talk about meatspace issues yet: Things disappear, get stolen, lost, destroyed, dissolve, companies change ownership, move to other locations, bribe, steal, commit fraud, get banned from selling things somewhere... it's a huge mess! Now sure, all of that isn't directly related to a supply chain. But on a global scale, a supply chain is always just an incredibly limited view of a network of goods moving from A to B. To prevent reality in the blockchain drifting apart, you'd need a way to model all of this. In the meantime, I'd much rather see simpler solutions: Nobody seems to have tried printing QR codes on physical products that contain PrivKey-signed manufacturing information, for example.

by 9dev 5y ago

hef19898 5y ago

Sure, that idea of transparency is around since someone came up with the SCOR model. The reason why I, personally, don't like the whole algorithm and ML things in Supply Chain is that I saw it more often than not coming from people with limited operational experience jumping on the latest bandwagon / hype train. And I have yet to see supply chain modelling that resulted in overall lower lead times and inventory levels. I am all in for using those tools so, but with discretion. E.g. if optimization software comes up with lower safety stock levels than what you have, use those. If the calculated levels are higher than actual ones, stick with the actual ones. I highly doubt so, that companies that failed to control their supply chains properly pre-COVID disruption would be able to benefit from increased insight into sub-tier suppliers. Those that do benefit from that insight are those that were already better than most before and will be even better after those insights are gained. One of the reasons nobody seems to be able to catch up to the likes of Apple, Amazon or Proctor&Gamble.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
I have always assumed that the big use of blockchain is for supply chain management. If "everyone" had access to the same chain, would that not bring "everyone" up to the level of at least knowing where the stock actually was? Edit: ok let me show how little I understand or have thought about this. Its possible for every primary producer to create a new "chain" for each of its products. For factories this is in the bounds of possible. At this point everyone who touches it could use a public / private key hand off to confirm receipt and then append to the chain. I suspect this will hit massive problems that I don't know about, but the principle makes sense. I do not know if the incentive align - but globally the idea of being able to track every single manufactured good across the world seems like it should be profitable.
- hef19898 5y ago
  The biggest issue with blockchain is the need to match the virtual blockchain to the physical goods. Once that link is lost, which happens every day, the blockchain is basically useless. Also, you uave to trust whomever that what the blockchain says is correct. Sure, you can audit these things on site, but then I don't see the benefit of a blockchain. Also, supply chains are made up of often times competing players. The amount of insight one could gain on other companies from a comolete blockchain is, IMHO, a big hinderance as well.
  - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
    I think my only answer is ... yes but ... but the value to every other player in the supply chain is so high, it feels inevitable
- 9dev 5y ago
  Blockchain feels like the right answer to the problem, but it's just infeasible in practice. Who do you trust to handle the blockchain for the entire world? Having a chain that maps the entire global trade will quickly grow to unwieldy proportions - if you need a data center to even store the petabytes of the chain's data, the entire point is moot: You'd again have to trust large vendors. If you instead opted to have smaller chains, perhaps on the goods category, country, or even reseller level, the market would fragment. We'd soon end up with multiple chains claiming different things, rendering the whole endeavour obsolete again. And we didn't even talk about meatspace issues yet: Things disappear, get stolen, lost, destroyed, dissolve, companies change ownership, move to other locations, bribe, steal, commit fraud, get banned from selling things somewhere... it's a huge mess! Now sure, all of that isn't directly related to a supply chain. But on a global scale, a supply chain is always just an incredibly limited view of a network of goods moving from A to B. To prevent reality in the blockchain drifting apart, you'd need a way to model all of this. In the meantime, I'd much rather see simpler solutions: Nobody seems to have tried printing QR codes on physical products that contain PrivKey-signed manufacturing information, for example.