13 May 2016. Enrico Camerinelli

This paper assesses to what degree blockchain technology is part of corporate supply chain management practitioners’ domain expertise, as well as if there is any useful impact of blockchain-based applications on supply chain processes. A significant roadblock is, however, the extremely poor understanding corporate people have about blockchain. The first step of the journey is therefore to align on terms and definitions.

Blockchain is a distributed database network that maintains a continuously growing list of “blocks” with data records. A block records some or all of recent transactions, and once completed, it goes into the blockchain as a permanent database. It makes transactions recordable and trackable, providing a system that is transparent, efficient and market-oriented. The most significant features of the blockchain are briefly summarized below.

Notarization (Reputation): The process of securely keeping track of the creation and modification time of a document. It allows interested parties to know, without a doubt—and without the need of an intermediary, e.g., a notary—that a document in question existed at a particular date and time.

You can read the full article at Finextra here: Blockchain in the Supply Chain

18 February 2018. Enrico Camerinelli

The analysis of use cases proposed by Community NdT participants continues.

Proof of Quality (proposed by Guerra, an Italian SME food processor).

There are small-medium sized companies (SMEs) that operate in the business-to-business sector, supplying semi-finished products to larger-sized producers and consumer operators. Since long these SMEs have decided to stay away from price competition, focusing instead on quality products both in terms of taste (typically a subjective factor), and complying with a precise series of objective and measurable parameters that determine the quality of a product, of its raw material components, as well as the quality of the processing and transformation processes. The economic, organizational, and commercial efforts required to remain constantly within the parameters that affect all aspects of the product and process life cycle (e.g., procurement, transformation, storage, shipment) become significant for an SME that must further support the burden of demonstrating its continuous compliance in order to be credible in the market, and therefore competitive.

You can read the full article at Finextra here: Blockchain in The Supply Chain Use Cases: Proof of Quality

11 February 2018. Enrico Camerinelli

The analysis of use cases proposed by Community NdT participants continues.

Inventory Finance (proposed by a winery). The use case leverages the characteristics of blockchain data traceability and uniqueness to access funding for the purchase and growth of vineyards and the transformation of wine products.

Currently the winery advances the cash needed to purchase “raw materials” (e.g., plants, agricultural materials, barrels) necessary for the collection and production of wine. It then hands off the vineyard to farmers that will take care of the plants until the harvest. At this point the farmers are paid for the work done, and the harvested grapes enter the production plant to be transformed into wine, put into barrels, mature, get bottled and finally sold. Only at this point the winery recovers the operating expenses and the initial financing.

You can read the full article at Finextra here: Blockchain in The Supply Chain Use Cases: Inventory Finance

04 March 2018. Enrico Camerinelli

The analysis of use cases proposed by Community NdT participants continues.

Certify the Existence of Goods in Inventory (proposed by Omlog- logistics services and Guerra- SME food processor).

This solution is useful for companies that keep their goods in temporary stores (e.g., cross-docking). From the point of view of the logistics service provider, the ability to ensure the traceability of the customer’s goods throughout the entire transportation cycle ensures an important competitive advantage. In fact, during the journey the goods often change hands, while remaining- in the eyes of the customer- always under the responsibility of the transport service provider.

Furthermore, the continuous visibility of the traveling goods allows to reduce the related insurance premiums to the full benefit of the logistics provider’s final economic result.

You can read the full article at Finextra here: Blockchain in The Supply Chain Use Cases: Certify the Existence of Goods in Inventory