Introducing Sensors, Identifiers & Digital Twins
A Report on Tracking Identity on the Supply Chain
I’m excited to announce today the release of our final report from our Department of Homeland Security Research Award: Sensors, Identifiers & Digital Twins. This research focused on digital identity and the supply chain. Prior to this research, I had not thought much about the supply chain and how it impacts my life. But after half a year of deep research, I’m convinced we can solve many of our global problems if we can solve supply chain problems. You don’t have to work in the supply chain industry to benefit from reading our report.
Supply chain problems are global problems and the collective result of the actions of every participant of the supply chain, including end consumers (you and I) who make purchase decisions based on available product data. The more data we have available, the better the decisions we can make, and this can have a positive impact on our world.
In our report we were tasked to understand how digital identity is assigned to a physical object using existing identifier standards and new technologies like IoT sensors, diamond DUST, and smart tags. The concept of digital twin passports envisions a connected, efficient, and transparent future for collecting supply chain data from many supply chain participants using their preferred technologies.
Supply chains are complex ecosystems with many participants, including governments, transnational companies, brokers, farms and factories, in addition to middlemen and suppliers. Further complicating the chain are multinational borders, multiple jurisdictions (global, national and local) and constantly shifting politics. Our report highlights four top areas of concern for the state of the global supply chain:
- Numerous Jurisdictions: The lack of harmonization of local, national, and global rules increases complexity and compliance costs, and leads to slow adoption of digital standards.
- Industry Collaboration: Supply chain collaboration is not about getting one industry to work together, like the financial industry developing an interoperable messaging system; it means getting all the industries, from mining to apparel to farming to pharmaceuticals, to work together and use the same set of standards.
- Technology Interoperability: Without standards it is difficult to interoperate and harmonize systems, as vendors are not transparent about how their data is collected or stored, and all companies must deal with some sort of legacy technology systems.
- Economic Problems: Our research uncovered an elephant in the room: that supply chain problems occur when the market system incentivizes profit above all and does not include all costs, including market externalities, in their profit equation. Irresponsible resource consumption and a lack of accountability continue to wreak havoc on areas of the supply chain.
The report includes detailed sections on:
- Tracking technology including an analysis of existing technologies like Bluetooth, RFID, QR Codes, IoT protocols, DNA and diamond dust tracking technology.
- Data concerns including data structures, data linkage, harmonization, aggregation, and governance over the collected data.
The report concludes with eight supply chain future scenarios where digital identity technology enables upstream empowerment, consistent data standards, smart contract automation, circular supply chain and a decentralized data grid.
We believe digital identity and blockchain technology offers promising solutions to be able to securely share data that was previously unavailable. This liberates provenance data collected in the supply chain, making it securely available to end customers (us!) who increasingly choose to purchase sustainably produced products, while at the same time maintains supplier privacy.
More supply chain data means you and I can make better purchase decisions, supporting the companies that align with our personal values.
Read the full report on ‘Sensors, Identifiers and Digital Twins: Tracking Identity on the Supply Chain.’
