The supply chains, which facilitate the movement of manufacturers’ products to consumers, have historically encountered problems such as ineffectiveness, fraud and lack of transparency. Many companies continue to use traditional monitoring methods such as paperwork or centralized databases, which can be slow, sensitive to handling and difficult to check through several entities. When the recordings are centralized, only one error, hacking or failure can cause significant disturbances. Businesses have trouble fully trusting suppliers data, complicating efforts to ensure the authenticity of products, security and ethical supply.
Blockchain technology supports it by providing a secure, decentralized and unforeseen method for the monitoring of products in real time. Instead of depending on a single central authority, Blockchain establishes a large shared digital book where each transaction is permanently recorded, which makes it impossible to modify past recordings. Public blockchains like Ethereum and Polygon guarantee transparency and safety, while private blockchains such as Hyperledger Fabric offer companies more control and privacy. In addition, tools such as zero knowledge of knowledge (ZKPS) allow companies to verify information without disclosing sensitive details, and intelligent contracts automatize key processes without intermediaries, cost reduction and delays
Regulations such as the FDA of the FDA FDA Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) and global standards such as the ISO 20400 for sustainable purchases push companies to adopt blockchain for better compliance and responsibility. Whether it is to follow the foods of firm to supermarkets, prevent counterfeit luxury products or secure pharmaceutical supply chains, blockchain goes from emerging technology to real necessity.
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The evolution of the transparency of the supply chain
The evolution of the transparency of the supply chain can be segmented in four key eras:
Pre-numeric era (pre-980):
The manifests on paper, the invoices of lading (documents detailing freight shipments) and the holding of manual files led to heavy latency reconciliation (delays in the verification of recordings), to systems subject to fraud and data inconsistencies due to the lack of cryptographic integrity.
Early Digitalization (1980 to 2000s):
The introduction of radio-frequency identification (RFID), the exchange of electronic data (EDI, a standard for exchanging commercially commercial documents) and an improved monitoring of monitoring of monitoring but always linked to centralized databases, leading to third-party confidence vulnerabilities (where the failure of an intermediary or a badison compromises the system).
ERP and SCM systems (2000 – 2015):
The centralized ERP consequences (for example, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics) provided better visibility but lacked interorganizational confidence (which means that companies should always rely on the internal data of the other without independent verification) and suffers from supplier locking (high switching costs when a company becomes too dependent on a particular software supplier).
Transparency fueled by the blockchain (2015-state):
The technology of the big book distributed (DLT, the term umbrella for blockchain and similar technologies) puts an end to unique points of trust, using byzantine consensus mechanisms tolerant with defects (BFT) (protocols guaranteeing that even if certain participants act with maliciousness, the network remains secure) to ensure the integrity of data through multiple entities.
Blockchain in action: technical implementations and architectures
Food supply chains: Cryptographic and interoperability
Several major players in the food industry, including Nestlé, Walmart and Carrefour, adopt IBM Food Trust, a platform based on blockchain built on a hyperledger fabric to improve traceability and food security. This system guarantees that each transaction (for example, distributor farm, distributor to the retailer) is signed cryptographically using ED25519 or ECDSA, guaranteeing the origin of food products.
Consumers can scan QR codes on Nestlé and Carrefour products to instantly check metadata by recorded lots as a digest SHA-256 stored on the blockchain. This prevents fraud and increases transparency.
Luxury and anti-contaisse products: tokenization based on the NFT and evidence of zero knowledge
The luxury sector has adopted blockchain to fight counterfeit. In April 2021, the world leaders in the luxury industry formed the Aura Blockchain consortium, an initiative to promote the adoption of blockchain solutions worldwide for the luxury industry. This group now includes luxury brands in the world, offering improved usefulness, transparency and traceability. Notable members include LVMH, Prada, Cartier, Dior, Givenchy, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes-Benz and Zegna
In addition, De Beers’ Blockchain Tracr solution uses multi-signating certificates through the diamond supply chain, guaranteeing diamond supply without conflict. Recently, De Beers Group has announced that it would provide information on the full cycle on the country of origin for all raw diamonds of beers + of beer newly recorded on the Tracr platform, this is aligned with the size threshold for new diamond import requirements for G7 countries.
This will allow consumers of diamond jewelry to the scale to engage with the unique trips that their diamonds have drawn from the source. Specific data of origin strengthen beer engagement towards confidence, transparency and ethical supply of consumers.
Pharmaceutical supply chains: lots management to tokenized and verifiable calculation
Pfizer, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson are part of the Medledger network, which is built on a parity substrate with a grandfather consensus. This blockchain guarantees that lots of drug certificates (for example, EPCIS GS1 data) is chopped using Keccak-256, which practically makes drug counterfeiting impossible. As the MediLEDGER indicates ”, the life sciences industry is only complex in the way pharmaceutical drugs pass from manufacturers to patients in service. In addition, there are relationships to pricing and enhancing complex contracts as well as regulatory requirements, and an infinite number of exceptions to industry standards for the way business partners do business together. Blockchain has an opportunity where all companies have an influence on the data and transactions they receive from partners, which means that automation can extend beyond internal systems.
Future directions: where the blockchain of the supply chain is directed
The next decade will probably see a convergence of blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and federated learning (an automatic learning approach that forms models through decentralized devices without sharing raw data), allowing autonomous autonomous supply chains.
Cryptographic primitives in quantum security (for example, NTRUENCRYPT, a encryption standard based on a network resistant to quantum attacks) will replace the current cryptography of the Elliptical Courbe (ECC) and the RSA (a widely used public cryptosystem), ensuring long -term security against the algorithm of Shor (a quantum algorithm capable of breaking of the breeze).
What is the next step?
In the next articles, we will dive deeply into a number of subjects, including Hyperledger Fabrication, Ethereum, ZK-Rollups, Smart Contracts, Cryptographic Security, Zero-Knowledge and Quantum-Safe Blockchain Technology-All important subjects shaping the next generation of management chain.
