Blockchain + Elastic Logistics
The supply industry is facing some interesting challenges lately. As demand increases, it must adapt to meet it — but some would argue that it’s not adapting fast enough. This is a bummer for consumers who are expecting products they ordered, but it is outright dangerous for companies that rely on timely deliveries (both sending and receiving).
The supply chain is also tightly interwound with the logistics industry — one cannot function without the other. Logistics are the support system for other industries including healthcare, e-commerce, retail, and food. Thankfully, new technologies are helping smooth everything out, maximizing efficiency and revolutionizing the way goods are exchanged.
Elastic logistics
According to Material Handling & Logistics:
“Elastic logistics refers to the flexibility to expand and shrink capabilities to align with the demands within the supply chain during a given timeframe. Flexible automation solutions increase the agility and elasticity of the logistics infrastructure to cost effectively meet market fluctuations. It is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution. However, it provides a customized answer to requirements like cost control, warehouse management, geographic restrictions, distribution channels, priority deliveries, and much more.”
Demand fluctuates, but the logistics industry isn’t always to prepared to handle that. Its functions can be rather static. This is particularly frustrating for companies whose daily operations are subject to the changes of supply and demand; in order to adapt proportionately, they are finding ways to automate the operations. The “elasticity” automation entails enables businesses to handle high amounts of orders in shorter periods of time.
The Internet of Things can help with automation, and so can outsourcing to third parties or shared economies. Any elastic option is intended to reduce costs and labor hours for businesses’ own employees, ensuring that their attentions are focused on other things and customers are as satisfied as possible.
Blockchain technology
We at Fr8 Network are that elasticity. With our blockchain-based platform, we can dramatically optimize the shipping industry’s efficiency and save users effort in logistics planning.
Blockchain was originally created as the supporting system for Bitcoin, but it has an infinite number of other applications. One of the obstacles the logistics industry faces is the availability of data: not all actors involved have the information they need to make informed decisions, and sharing this information is difficult and slow.
Because blockchain is a transparent public ledger, all relevant data is clearly displayed for all parties involved. Imagine a functioning supply chain where everyone knows all they need to know: very little would be lost, overlooked, or late.
“In the logistics industry, where the product goes through a sequence of custody handovers and transactions to reach its final destination, it is essential to have a technology with the capacity to record a series of transactions that cannot be tampered. In such a case, it becomes crucial to know who is responsible for the goods through every handover, which, in turn, allows package tracking as well as accountability. It is one of the most substantial logistics industry trends that can save companies billions of dollars when applied on a mass-market level.”
Blockchain has the potential to record all transactions made over its system, guaranteeing an unprecedented level of transparency. The technology is also decentralized: if a company uses a centralized system to manage its inventory and shipments, all of that information could be destroyed if an accident or natural disaster were to occur. If that information is destroyed, then there goes the company’s entire business until logistics are up and running again. Blockchain technology stores information in multiple places along a peer-to-peer network, monitored by computers acting as “nodes” that check for suspicious activity and keep information accessible, even if one of the nodes is damaged.
What Fr8 Network is doing
Fr8 Network provides a platform called Fr8 Board, which allows carriers and suppliers to see all relevant data to their operations. With smart contracts, we can also help parties automate their promises to each other, ensuring payments are made on time and everyone is held accountable. Our blockchain application also helps pair suppliers and carriers together so that neither side needs to sift through a list of various other companies searching for the perfect partners.
And of course, our platform makes logistic more elastic on behalf of our participants, helping them deal with surges in demand. If a manufacturer receives an excess of orders, it doesn’t have to wait for its standard shipping arrangements — with us, it can get the carrier it needs quickly. We at Fr8 Network understand the fluctuations of supply and demand, so we are here to help companies adapt to ensure customer satisfaction.
