Blockchain

Supply Chain Quality Management – The Future of Commerce

from The Bitcoin News 5 years ago 0 0 826

Supply chain management is the monitoring of goods or services throughout their development, shipping, and sale. This process can involve the movement and storage of work-in-process inventory, the parts required during the assembly of the product being offered. In order to monitor this efficiently, a company must have the ability to track individuals, organizations, resources, manufacturing process, and the sales of their products.

When supply chain management is done correctly, it results in increased revenues, improved quality, reduced costs, and more efficient production. In turn, companies enjoy higher sales and distribution when their supply chain quality management systems run smoothly. In a local business scenario, these concerns are manageable, but once the business requires international support to create their products, the logistic become staggeringly complex.

Currently, internal company protocols monitor supply chains. The problem is that many of these protocols are not universal. The scattered state of the supply chain makes it nearly impossible for any single company to fully guarantee the authenticity of their products.

Supply chain quality management systems eliminate these concerns by providing consumers with a real solution to the problem. A blockchain-based system can monitor the creation, storing, transportation, and sale of these products internationally and make the information fully available to all parties.

To find a smart example of this style of blockchain logistics in use, you need not look any further than the budding marijuana industry. Emerald Health Therapeutics is the largest cannabis producer in Canada. The firm recently made headlines when they announced a strategic partnership with DG Blockchain Solutions called CannaChain Solutions.

CannaChain provides cannabis users and providers with an immutable record of their marijuana’s development. The protocol tracks the entire supply chain and e-commerce activity for the CannaChain platform. The partnership allows Emerald Health Therapeutics to monitor in real-time their cannabis’ development across multiple states. The increased monitoring abilities allow the firm to locate and eliminate any inefficiency within their development and delivery systems.

The system monitors the plants throughout their entire growing cycle. Also, the monitoring extends to testing, quality assurance, safety, and handling data. Consumers can buy with confidence, knowing that their products are tracked through every step of the process. Tracking includes production, shipping, government regulations, and consumer activity.

Let’s look at another example. When you go to your grocery store and buy an item, you are completely dependent on your trust of the company to ensure you are indeed getting what the packaging states. There is no verification system that enables you to prove that the oranges you bought are actually from Florida or the potatoes from Idaho. You must blindly trust that the companies you’re doing business with are being honest. In many cases, they aren’t.

Additionally, the current global supply chain quality management systems are so dispersed and localized that even the manufacturers are unable to guarantee the origin of their products. The lack of an efficient means of tracking their products from creation to sale is a real concern. The introduction of blockchain technology could be the answer to these problems.

If you’re thinking that it’s not a huge deal if you buy apples that say they are from Florida but in reality, they are from Argentina, think again. In the case of apples, your risks are low. When you replace apples with medicine, you can see how the stakes rise significantly. Counterfeit medicines are a huge business globally, and serious injuries often occur coinciding with these scams.

A report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) put the amount of counterfeit medicine in circulation today at 10 percent. In other words, one in every ten medicines sold globally is counterfeit. If this sounds like a huge problem for you, it should. Thousands have died from counterfeit medicines globally.

There are many examples of this type of fraud occurring. In 2011, 200 people met their untimely death after contaminated heart medicine was sold throughout Pakistan. In another highly publicized incident, more than a thousand residents of the Democratic Republic of Congo were hospitalized in 2014 after consuming a counterfeit drug that contained a powerful antipsychotic. While these incidents are terrifying, they are by no means exclusive to developing countries.

Blockchain technology is a powerful tool for businesses to increase their profit margins and overall product quality. In the future, this technology can combine with the Internet of Things (IoT) to create a seamless, automated, quality control system.

Imagine if your fridge could sense that you are getting low on milk and automatically order you another gallon. Additionally, you could then verify the order in terms of its place of origin, shipping, and storage details. In this manner, users gain convenience and confidence within the marketplace.

A Global Marketplace

As mega-retailers push the threshold of global economics to the next level, the demand for cost-effective management systems continues to increase. In the near future, these blockchain-based protocols will easily prove your product’s validity. Hopefully, the institution of these systems will reduce the amount of fraud encountered on an international level in a dramatic way.

Supply Chain Management Takes Center Stage

Being able to guarantee the level of quality each of your products possesses is a huge advantage in the market. Consumers continue to demand more transparency from their products, and only blockchain technology can handle these requirements in a cost-effective manner. Expect to see the quality management sector quickly adopt this revolutionary technology in the coming months.

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