Human rights abuses, non-compliance with regulations, and fraudulent products take headlines when failures in supply chain management are revealed. While notions of transparency, fair trade, and sustainability are gaining importance in customers’ purchasing decisions, most businesses must deal with complex and non-integrated supply chain networks.
Deloitte Luxembourg has investigated how a combination of new technologies can resolve these traceability issues in a new whitepaper entitled “Continuous interconnected supply chain: Using Blockchain and Internet-of-Things in supply chain traceability.”
“As the current standard supply chain process is based mainly on trust, many issues could fall through the cracks,” stated Patrick Laurent, Technology Leader at Deloitte Luxembourg. “Redefining the entire system with secure platforms gives peace of mind to each stakeholder while significantly improving efficiency.”
Tracking the trace
The technology behind sensors and electronic chips is evolving rapidly and renders them increasingly portable. This evolution gives companies the opportunity to attach sensors to physical goods to track their movement and progression, and thereby detect potential failures and fraud. Thibault Chollet, Blockchain Leader at Deloitte Luxembourg, explained further: “If companies combine the data collected by these sensors, with blockchain technology, which provides standardization, transparency, and traceability, they can significantly mitigate their operational risks.”
