How Blockchain and IIoT are Bringing Innovation to Shipping
In an effort that predicts the future of global trade, 17 tons of almonds have successfully been shipped and tracked from Sunraysia in Victoria, Australia, to Hamburg in Germany in a blockchain-based collaboration between Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) and five Australian and international supply chain leaders.
The shipping exercise is a demonstration of a new blockchain platform underpinned by distributed ledger technology, smart contracts, and IoT to facilitate the trade experiment, tracking the shipment from packer to end delivery in parallel to existing processes. The CBA is using the Ethereum blockchain in this project, although they remain open to other options in the future. The CBA platform will be set up on a private blockchain (a network of known and trusted parties), meaning that only participants who are authorized can access information.
The platform digitizes three key areas of global trade – operations, documentation, and finance – by housing the container information, completion of tasks, and shipping documents on a purpose-built blockchain.
Partners were able to view and track the location of the shipment as well as view the conditions, such as temperature and humidity, inside the container via four IoT devices. This level of data provided partners in the supply chain with a greater level of transparency and efficiency regarding the location, condition, and authentication of the goods being transported.
At the documentation layer, the blockchain-enabled supply chain allows partners to upload and access key documents, such as the bill of lading, certificates of origin, and other documents required by customs, which streamlined these processes.
The company notes: “For the purposes of the experiment and in the interest of collaboration, we hope to provide increased visibility across all participants, which will achieve a better understanding of the process flow and shared learnings. In a future commercial environment, the access rights may be more restrictive, allowing participants to protect commercially sensitive information and restrict user access to the relevant information only.”
IoT offers a great way to increase efficiency in shipping. On board-sensors work together with sensors at the docks to monitor the volume of goods and unloading speeds. Data analysis of the sensor data can determine a realistic ETA. Intelligent IoT Messaging technology provides the ability for anyone to query the ETA status of the ship.
