Enterprise IPFS for True Supply Chain Provenance — Part 1
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written by Maurice Cardinal
Like fine wine, it’s important with some products to know their exact and raw origin, plus precisely how they evolved, and exactly how and when they are delivered into customer’s hands. When your life is reflective of the success of your brand, it’s a constant challenge to find and develop more flexible and cost-effective solutions, which basically means matching the right technology to your expectations. Blockchain is a great start for the supply chain industry, however, it can not handle large amounts of data which is a major problem.
The distributed web or IPFS — the interplanetary file system protocol, is the next Web 3.0 solution that progressive large or small companies need in order to stay competitive, stay alive and truly scale. The challenge however is that the tech field today is overcrowded, and the competition brutal. It’s more congested and confusing than it has ever been, we’ve all heard and experienced a long list of empty tech promises. As a result, no one owns a customer anymore — customers own you.
So … how do you know when to make your move to modern technology? It’s actually relatively easy. Simply ask yourself if you are as profitable as you or your shareholders expect, and if so, are you able to maintain the pace? If not, there’s your answer and it’s time to explore and expand new innovative solutions.
Finding a new tech solution is similar in some ways to buying a new car. Your first question should be; does the app make sense for my business? If so, execute due diligence and look closely at the team behind the application. Are they innovative? Are they experienced? Is there a solid team to support their app and do they have enough capital to see it through? And finally, is the app ready for the real world? If you can confidently answer yes to all of these questions, it’s time to make your move.
Intuitive applications like Temporal, an enterprise IPFS platform, help manage the confluence of big data that is collected by a variety of other third party data apps and are ready to go with a strong team supporting it. Working in tandem with any App, DApp, or Blockchain, Temporal can help you deliver all you need quickly and easily. Plus, it can also help you deliver a digital data sales ecosystem you’ve only dreamt about.
For example; On any second of any day, using Temporal and a suite of technologies such as Blockchain, AI, IoT etc, you can now instantaneously track your product whether it is moving by sea, air, or land, including watching in real time on a geo-location map, the last-mile delivery-vehicle, whether it’s a truck, car, or bike, winding its way through rush hour traffic. If you want, you can also immediately pull up all the professional information about each person in the entire supply chain who touches your product for any reason, whether raw material, manufacturer/processor, shipper, broker, etc., including their direct contact info if they provide it and if you have proper permissions. The best part is all this data will have have integrity, transparency and be extremely secure.
The bottom line that’s good for your bottom line; Regardless of where you are, or with whom you do business, the smart choice today is to protect you interests by more effectively managing touch-points and full-circle communication with your suppliers, manufacturers, marketers, distributors, shippers, and everyone in your supply chain. Supply chain management now has the potential to be so intuitive and fluid that it feels more like art than it does science. Temporal is the perfect platform to help you manage the new era of Web 3.0 without making it complex.
We all still need to hit our numbers, and when your tools are instinctively easy to use you have more freedom and time to think creatively and solve age-old problems you’ve never been able to address properly. You’ll be able to immutably trace and track not only where your raw materials originate, but also trace every detail of every supply chain process, including each person who handles your product, and all the way through that historically tough last mile into the user’s hands. Temporal and IPFS help make the supply chain process easier, cheaper, scalable and fully transparent to its clients private or publicly. Plus … they are both open source and both free to use.
If you’d like to learn more about the IPFS as it applies to the supply chain process read Part 2 of our 2 part series.
Join Temporal’s online community on Twitter, Telegram or visit our company website for more company information.
Written for RTrade Technologies by: Maurice Cardinal
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Enterprise IPFS for True Supply Chain Provenance — Part 1
Supply Chain Management is a hot topic today for a few reasons. The first is that better management of big data has presented us with a wider range of options. The second reason is that these new options are causing us to think differently about how we relate to our affiliates, clients, and customers. Another sobering reason is that we recently experienced a software supply chain hi-jacking spree that placed viruses on millions of computers. It’s now clear to everyone that supply chain networks need to radically improve security, and that old technology no longer cuts it.
When software security companies get hacked it’s time for systemic change.
Better management of our supply chain is also about better communication at every touch point along the journey. It’s now possible to seamlessly cross-stream communication at every junction. For example, in the gemstone industry, communication touch points are abundant and complex and include government regulation, exploration, discovery, mining, processing, distribution, and of course user satisfaction. Being able to track every step of the process through the chain builds trust. Knowing for sure that the data gleaned from the chain is accurate, certified, and easily accessible enhances the value of your product and saves everyone time and money.
The ruby and emerald supply chain process and challenges are similar to most other industries …
On almost every supply chain, whether product or service, the most difficult and volatile segment is the last mile to the user, which could be B2B or B2C.
As a general rule, the reason the last mile on the chain is the most challenging is because all along the way, up until that last mile, you are dealing with professionals who all have a vested interest in making the project work, keeping in mind though that they too are trying to make a profit which might make it a challenge for you. The self-leveler, and great thing about collaboration is that if you deal repeatedly with the same companies in your chain, you get to know and trust them, and it becomes less of an issue over time. There are however many unforeseen chain supply obstacles that pop up. Better communication helps mitigate damage and optimize change more effectively–it’s a space where Temporal and IPFS shine.
Working together and layered on each other, Temporal and IPFS combined with other more specific use applications can deliver clear instructions about your product or service, describing in minute detail, maybe even in a Smart Contract how, when, who, where, and what has to happen at each precise moment along the chain. Facts are checked and double checked automatically, and anomalies are reported immediately to appropriate parties throughout every applicable node in the distributed network. This immutable process improves security significantly at every level.
In an old school traditional supply chain, stakeholders have limited access to the overall flow of information, which, when chaos ensues and schedules become inadvertently delayed, makes it hard for those down chain to predict and plan deviations on the fly. Delays very rarely get passed along the chain efficiently, which causes costly delays for everyone, including the end user–the customer.
In an IPFS network each party in the supply chain can be assigned access to see the entire chain, or be given permission to only selective segments respective of their involvement. The network can be configured so each party has to sign off on each segment before the process moves to the next step in the chain. It can even be set up to require each party to run through a detailed pre-flight checklist just like an airline pilot. You could for example schedule that the supply chain user inspect the product and digitally sign off on model#, colour, quantity, shipping mode and destination even before the product is loaded into a shipping container, or at ANY STEP during manufacturing, packaging, or along the route. You could also require that the person receiving the container, digitally duplicate the process to ensure that all the info/data is correct before they forward it to ground transport, or whatever the next carrier mode might be. It becomes an automated, AI innovative checks-and-balances process that saves everyone time and money respective of costly mistakes that often escalate exponentially down chain.
With Temporal and IPFS working collaboratively, the supply chain process becomes intuitive, fluid, and seamless. It works so efficiently in part because IPFS is based on content parameters, not locationlike in the old data days of HTTP. It seems like an inconsequential difference, but here’s why “content addressing” matters so much:
When tracking a product based on “the ‘location’ of the server where the data file with the product information resides”, i.e., possibly and quite likely on a centralized cloud server owned by a third party, any discrepancy, say for example a the government that changes trade agreement regulations midstream, can be catastrophic when everyone downstream in the chain is not made aware of the change in a timely manner. As governments become more volatile, supply chains have to become more stable and transparent. The IPFS shift of power to the producer is subtle, but it carries heavy weight and can deliver positive consequences for everyone in the supply chain. Keep in mind too that last minute supply chain changes can also simply be because of a storm in the Atlantic. The reasons for changes are numerous, but the outcome is always the same — increased costs for everyone.
Whatever the reason causing the anomaly, legacy enterprises that still run on HTTP are not capable of performing the data marketing functions progressive and competitive companies need and expect. IPFS picks up where HTTP leaves off by shifting the focus from outdated location, to new way content.
Content in the network context simply means that your data/product/service has an identifying marker permanently attached to it in the form of a hash that can reside on a wide variety of nodes/servers throughout the distributed network. When someone searches for your product or service, they can now go directly to it without being forced to pass through the location of a third party central server.
Regardless of the reason for any changes that occur in a supply chain network, any deviation drives costs up when poor communication causes more problems instead of fixing small errors that demand prompt action. Early intervention on the fly is the key to managing costs and customer expectations. IPFS and Temporal working together can help companies peer more clearly into the future, and mitigate costly human error. Both are also OPEN SOURCE which means some of the most brilliant minds around the world are working on its development.
Temporal and IPFS deliver a distributed web network that makes it possible to easily and cost-effectively manage the flow of information and the profitable delivery of products or services. Temporal’s tag team collaboration helps supply chains operate more efficiently and optimizes profit while delivering a satisfying experience for the customer. At the end of the day and end the line, a happy customer is all that really counts. Next to profit of course.
Contact us to learn how we can improve your profit margins through more efficient supply chain management.
Enterprise IPFS for True Supply Chain Provenance — Part 2
Written for RTrade Technologies by: Maurice Cardinal