There is disagreement within the industry over whether public blockchains will be suitable to the shipping industry. In July, APL mentioned that such an approach would discourage adoption by a community already struggling to understand blockchain in general.
Deputy director at MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics, Jim Rice, noted that “in the supply chain, you want to grant permission. I get to decide who has access. The question is, how do you get the benefits of immutability and visibility when you need to constrain those things?”
This week, on a social media discussion, Rob Bailey, CEO of the enterprise blockchain accelerator MState, quibbled with the notion that “all enterprise use cases of blockchain will migrate to public chains.”. “Anyone saying this doesn’t know what they are talking about,” he said. “It is too early to tell where the market is going and enterprise has a strong preference for privacy, permission systems, and hybrid networks.”
However, there is a strong belief among logistics blockchain advocates that the technology’s potential will only match its hype through public blockchains.
The shipment on which CargoX, another company that is developing applications with blockchain, tested its application involving a TEU of garments imported by Metro d.d, which operates a chain of 200 retail clothing outlets in Central Europe under the MANA brand, and the China-based exporter Hangzhou Doko Garments Co., which represents roughly 600 ready-to-wear women’s fashion brands.
“This will give us the opportunity to lower the cost of importing goods significantly,” Milos Kosir, Metro d.d. logistics manager said in a statement. “We import hundreds of TEU from the Far East, and we are always trying hard to optimize our supply chain. If it raises the safety and reliability of the document transfer, that is an added value for us as well.”
Hangzhou Doko Garments CEO Lin Zongyong said the value of the solution comes in “the possibility to oversee where the B/L [bill of lading] currently is and always have the archive accessible. We are looking into the opportunity and the effect it would have on our company as a whole.” CargoX said the solution will launch commercially in September.
Another case study that is about to start is that of XELLZ, a project logistics management company in The Netherlands, who is testing blockchain for all project logistics related documentation for its customers. First results are promising although there is a long way to go before we will see blockchain enter in our industry on a day to day operation.
Part from: joc.com
