With dozens of cryptocurrencies making their ICO, it is no surprise that blockchain is getting more and more media coverage. What was once a purely financial technology, it is an append-only ledger after all, has shown some surprisingly expansive potential into other industries with the release of add-ons like smart contracts and tokenisation. In manufacturing, an immutable data trail can have value in a variety of functions ranging from supply chain management and logistics to production. With sensors becoming an integrated part of every manufacturing plant, collecting, understanding, manipulating and leveraging that data holds tremendous potential value for those on the production side of the supply chain.
It All Starts with the Supply Chain
Provenance and Everledger are both great examples of what blockchain can do for supply chain management. With Provenance, you get a detailed transaction record that tracks every major event in the production process from when the pieces roll out on the assembly line to the final delivery to a customer. By showing the story behind the production, consumers get a product they can trust that is exactly as advertised. Worried about fair trade? Provenance makes it easy to verify fair trade statements, organic certifications and much more.
Everledger focuses on protecting high-value assets as they make their way from the producer to an eventual client. It started with diamonds, a small, extremely valuable asset that has come under fire in recent years, but it doesn’t end there. By incorporating smart contracts, Everledger allows a frictionless transfer of assets that helps protect every party involved in a sale, including banks and insurance companies.
Sensors and the IoT Advance Manufacturing Efficiencies
Think of the blockchain as the software that makes the Internet of Things (IoT) devices so valuable to manufacturing. Every sensor on the production floor gathers a tremendous amount of data. Until that data is collated and interpreted, it’s just an added expense line for data storage. The potential for sensors is off the charts, but only if there is a platform ready and able to absorb that information and make it usable. That’s where the blockchain comes in with services like Factom Iris and Super Computing Systems.
Factom Iris individually identifies all of the devices connected, so you not only know what the data is but often more importantly, where it is coming from. That doesn’t mean getting an instant notification that there is a shutdown on the line, it means that you don’t need to worry about false identifications. By building device profiles, the same way that companies do for individuals, Factom Iris verifies the identity of devices, ensuring that the data is coming from the stated source.
Super Computing Systems adds another layer of verification that can help with physical problems at a factory and digital verification–timestamps. When sensors dump data, it comes with a timestamp to show exactly what happened when. This can be critical when tracking down roadblocks that are slowing production or trying to find the cause of an accident.
Keeping Business Data for Businesses
IBM Watson offers the ability to create small, private blockchains that enable rapid data sharing between stakeholders. While this approach does mean some centralisation of data, it also allows businesses to keep some information private. Greater transparency along the supply chain is a big bonus, but not at the cost of certain privileged information leaking into the public knowledge base. IBM Watson offers a blend of the two.
Benefits of Decentralization for Manufacturing
A transparent supply chain offers manufacturers some significant benefits, particularly in an era where some producers support guaranteed uptimes and subscription-based services. With sensors and a decentralised data collection system, businesses can draw information from shipped units around the world, use predictive analytics to determine likely points of failure and take proactive steps to avoid any equipment downtime. When you can advertise a piece of construction equipment that never breaks or a manufacturing plant that hands out its own repair requests before the line shuts down, you have a product that can change the face of manufacturing forever, which is exactly what Syncron, a recent blockchain startup proposes for the future.
Transparency along the supply chain is another major benefit to decentralised systems. What if you could instantly track where every part in a finished product came from? For auto manufacturers, that could help prevent costly recalls and avoid re-orders from companies that produce faulty parts. In restaurants, that would mean nearly instant accountability and the ability to minimise contagion exposure when tainted food hits the market.
Retail giant, Walmart, has taken food tracking to the next level in a partnership with IBM. In addition to reducing the time needed to identify tainted sources to mere seconds, their smart tracking program aims to also collect environmental data from end-to-end. Some products need constant refrigeration. When temperatures get too high, it can affect quality. With blockchain technology, buyers can track the entire journey and pay for the quality they actually receive, all handled automatically through the use of smart contracts and tracking. Without full supply chain transparency, these processes are rarely simple, and in some cases, near impossible.
Manufacturing 4.0 is Ready for Rollout
By blending technologies like IoT and blockchain, manufacturing has new opportunities for cost savings and controls, along with the ability to offer better service to customers. As this technology matures and moves out of the startup phase, expect to see adoption expand beyond the world’s largest enterprises. Data means more insight into your business, and getting access to good data is likely to depend on the blockchain. Better security, scalable platforms, immutable histories and several other features make manufacturing and blockchain a synergistic combination.
