The crypto industry has seen a lot of new trends over the years, such as ICOs in 2017, IEOs in 2019, DeFi in 2020 (and 2021), and right now, NFTs seem to be all the rage. However, as these trends switch in search of the ultimate use case for digital currencies and their underlying technology, it is worth taking a look at projects that focus on older problems, such as fixing the issues with supply chains.
What is the Problem with Supply Chains?The supply chain industry has countless actors, but the problem is that they have different technical capacities. This inconsistency is a major roadblock to efficient data exchange, as it often requires asking the same questions over and over, which is not only time-consuming, but also still paper-based in no small amount. Not to mention that most of these processes are manual, which means that even more time is wasted due to the human factor.
In fact, the World Economic Forum has estimated that as much as 20% of total transportation cost within global trade goes to document processing. This is a huge percentage, and a huge waste of time and money. Furthermore, it is also estimated that $7 billion worth of fresh food spoils before it even reaches consumers in North America due to slow and inefficient supply chains.
Obviously, this will not do — especially since we already have the technology that could significantly improve this outdated and wasteful system. Blockchain technology has been trying to tackle the issues of the supply chain industry for years now, and some projects have already delivered some rather intriguing and competent new solutions. One example is OBORTECH, which is developing a Smart Logistics Hub — a decentralized, democratic digital ecosystem that favors all actors involved in the supply chain industry, regardless of how advanced their technical capacities may be.
What is OBORTECH?OBORTECH is a project whose founders started developing their Smart hub with integrated information ecosystem, which includes and allows access to real-time data and analytics. The project aims to increase the visibility of shipments, thus making data more accessible to those involved in the supply chain.
Its Smart Hub is based on the combination of blockchain technology and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and it aims to revolutionize the current logistics system. It plans to simplify it so that no party would find it too complicated to deal with, regardless of their IT expertise, but also to increase its security through unified communication, greater transparency, and advanced tracking methods.
How Does it All Work?The blockchain and cloud-powered communication hub would be easily accessible via the web or mobile-based UI, as well as an open API. Thanks to blockchain, which is tamper-proof, the online document exchange itself would be trustworthy and reliable.
Naturally, the IoT devices would provide real-time tracking and significantly improved visibility of shipments, as this sector offers various sensors that can be installed on containers and trucks that transport goods. They can then transmit data to the Smart Hub dashboard, and provide all participants with identical information simultaneously.
This will serve as excellent protection against theft, product smuggling, and other criminal activities that have been bothering the supply chain industry for decades.
Lastly, the project would also offer an open and decentralized networking marketplace, established among the Smart hub participants. The marketplace would be fair, and its ecosystem would enable the verification and rating of different stakeholders in the supply chain. Best of all, this would be possible without third-party credentials.
It would be fully automatic, and based on the supply chain provenance data and shipment histories that are registered on the network.
Shipments would be traced from the moment they leave the production site/warehouse until they are delivered to importers. As for the network itself, it would be as simple to use as Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), only infinitely more helpful for the supply chain industry, as well as other industries that come into contact with it.
In the end, this system could shorten the unnecessarily long processes, improve the speed of processing data, eliminate corruption, theft, and other similar problems, and establish trust between collaborating parties — all thanks to blockchain and IoT.