The need of a global Supply Chain protocol and how DLT can enable a zero waste economy

While this is a first article of a series, I will give you a brief look behind the thought process of OURZ, experience we made with the industry, where we stand now and what kind of challenges we adress in future.

In 2014 I had the great opportunity to run a bar for a few months. Not only did I become aware of the physical strain of such a job, but I also realized how much potential there is in the efficiency optimization of processes even for small businesses.

Since 2005 I have worked as a SAP Management advisor, specializing in efficiency management in the areas of supply chain and production. And as a programmer for over 20 years, the medicine I administer is: digitalization and automation, where manual activities eat up the added value — write code to provide an efficient solution.

And now I had to analyse my own processes and improve them in order to make more profit, but above all to make my guests more satisfied — gastronomy is all about unforgettable moments and delightful emotions.

The gnosis of the months on the other side of the desk were points that laid the foundation for the OURZ project and my further work as an advisor.

• Make guests’ lives easier and give them space to chill out. They thank you with their loyality, tips and social currency.
• Although there are many efficiency-driven models for business optimization, it is the power of the network that has led our business to success.
• Automation and digitisation create space for new value, but the adjustment screws are different from case to case — the one-tool solution does not exist — and will never exist, that is my personal conviction.

It is of course not my intention to claim that this is a groundbreaking discovery, but I would like to point out one thing as an advisor to large enterprises and corporations in various industrial and service sectors for many years:
When it comes to optimizing and increasing efficiency through digitalization and automation, most of them fail and they fail wrong — not forward.

The old mantra of today is tool standardization, process streamlining and convergence. The problem with this is the lack of focus on the problems of “end users” and a wrong approach to managing complexity. This top-to-bottom approach works in its strategic policy, but when it comes to implementation, it loses at the tactics level, the art of constellation.

Let me explain to you the following examples.

Standardization
In many cases, different tools and processes are driven to standardization. Replacement of “guerrilla” tools and process variations, call it what you like. The result is in most cases the following, a tool or process that hardly anyone can use, since it either does not consider the specific user’s interests or because it serves the needs of everyone in one screen. In both cases, however, the result is one thing — dissatisfaction and a lack of acceptance among the operators, resulting in a loss of efficiency and productivity.

Unification
This top to bottom approach has mainly one motivation, the application of comparable metrics to achieve simple decision premises on the basis of standardized models. Complex organizations require a consolidated view from their leaders to be able to make decisions at all. And this is where the devil lies buried, for in order to have decision-makers who are as capable as possible, they often rely on the mantra of standardization described above, with all the problems and costs.

OURZ as our project, focuses on the following goals which are easy to describe, as follows:

1. make the global supply chain efficient, additionally
2. enabling entrepreneurial creativity and action.

In 2016, we took this approach to address two major challenges facing humanity, namely the waste of precious resources and the shift driven by digitalization and automation, from production-related work to creative service-oriented value creation.

As different as these two goals may be, they could not be considered more separate from each other, in a decentralized strategic context.

OURZ platform & the TING protocol
We publish a global common supply chain protocol, called TING, designed for the use of distributed ledger technology. The protocol is open source and works currently on Blockchain technology — Ethereum.

We are convinced that it is neither standardization nor unification but diversification that adds value by addressing the global mass of horizontal integrated usecases. Therefore, the way forward is not to dictate who does what and how, but to agree on how we communicate about things we do. This dezentralized common language, has therefore an impact on global GDP growth, not taking into account any improvements on business side along the supply chain.

Therefore, we are implementing the first business and consumer usecases based on the protocol to demonstrate the vertical integrated added value. The OURZ Platform is initially a centralized system until we morph it to a decentralized community platform as a service.

Essentially, the platform aims to increase the global efficiency of horizontally and vertically integrated businesses. So that with the help of decentralized and inteligent systems we are able to transform into a zero waste economy.

The platform is intended to simplify the integration of existing systems and, above all, to provide room for creative new solutions and businesses through a large number of providers for different usecases. All with the goal to leverage the potential of distributed ledger technology to drive efficient optimization, zero waste economy, shared values and new business oportunities — together we can do it.

If you want to know more about our project, find us on Twitter @ourzPlatform or follow us here on Medium.