Real Use Cases For Blockchain in Enterprise

The platform digitizes three key areas of global trade by housing the container information, completion of tasks, and shipping documents on a purpose-built blockchain.

• Operations
• Documentation
• Finance

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 problem:

It's been a particularly bad year for food poisoning and contamination, from 5 dead and over 200 sick due to an E. Coli outbreak in romaine lettuce in California, to needles being placed in strawberries in Australia (and now New Zealand). A critical way to address the problem is through the ability to track products from farm to store and ultimately consumers. It's estimated that every year, one-in-ten people fall ill — and 400,000 die — from contaminated food.

The solution:

After several years of tests, Walmart is ready to mandate the use of blockchain technology by a swath of its U.S. suppliers, marking it as one of its biggest commercial uses. Starting in September 2019, Walmart and its Sam’s Club division will require suppliers of fresh, leafy greens to implement real-time, end-to-end traceability of products back to the farm using a digital ledger developed by IBM. The world’s largest retailer plans similar mandates for other fresh fruit and vegetable providers within the next year.

Food authentication and supply chain tracking is a critical step to quickly finding and helping address sources of contamination around the world. With blockchain, food products can be digitally tracked from an ecosystem of suppliers to store shelves and ultimately to consumers. When applied to the food supply chain, digital product information, such as farm origination details, batch numbers, factory and processing data, expiration dates, storage temperatures, and shipping details are digitally connected to food items and the information is entered into the blockchain along every step of the process.

Each piece of information provides critical data points that could potentially reveal food safety issues with the product. The information captured in each transaction is agreed upon by all members of the business network; once there is a consensus, it becomes a permanent record that can’t be altered. This helps assure that all information about the item is accurate.

In short, blockchain food tracking is predicted to ensure:

• Provenance: stronger assurance of origin and chain‐of‐custody
• Recalls: faster and more precise recalls
• Freshness: fresher produce and meat, reduce waste and spoilage
• Safety: fewer contamination incidents

Cybersecurity

The problem:

All industries are vulnerable to an increasing number of cyber attacks, with 20% of organizations having experienced at least one recent IoT attack. Healthcare records are routinely hacked to be sold on the dark web, whilst in manufacturing, 86% of attacks in manufacturing are targeted. Almost half (47%) of their breaches involve theft of intellectual property to gain a competitive advantage, with trade secrets the most common data type breached in manufacturing companies.

The solution: Wide and varied

Blockchain technology is being used in a variety of different ways in different verticals to address the problems of cybersecurity. To secure Electronic Health Records, IRYO is utilizing zero-knowledge data storage with public and private keys to ensure that patients have constant access to their health data and can choose who may access it through owning their own personal keys. 

In the first application of its kind targeting IIoT security, Xage utilizes blockchain technology. By enforcing immutable records, distributing and sharing security data across the nodes in its network, blockchain is tamper-proof, redundant, and self-healing. This means that Xage acts as the inverse of centralized security models, so the security fabric eliminates single points of security failure and actually becomes stronger with each additional node, rather than more vulnerable to attack.

Xage’s blockchain-protected Fabric provides tamper-proofing for passwords and enrollment, and policies required to run continuous edge operations. Xage Systemic Tamperproofing uses device and industrial control system (ICS) fingerprints stored in the Fabric to protect edge processes end-to-end and prevent device and ICS compromise. If a device or controller is compromised, it will be isolated to prevent the contagion from spreading.

Use cases: 

Xage is currently deployed with a number of customers across industries including energy, utilities, manufacturing, and transportation. Customers include ABB, Itron, Dell, IBM and NTT Communications.

The creation of new economies and data monetization

The problem: It's not exactly a problem, but thanks to IoT, we're moving into a 'Machine Economy' where devices will trade everything from storage, computation/analytics to electricity and sensor data. A suite of platforms, marketplaces, and trading spaces are emerging with the aim to enable companies and consumers to sell or exchange data. 

Your automobile will soon be producing data about congestion, road quality, and mechanical feedback. If you choose, this can all be sold to highways agencies, fellow drivers, parts manufacturers and smart city operators who can use it to make automated road repairs, schedule maintenance and redirect traffic in real-time.

In turn, your car will need data to operate in a smart city. Each day your vehicle will want to steer clear of traffic, find the best electricity prices at the closest charging stations, avoid potholes, and glean information from the hundreds of IoT sensors it will pass. How do you trade this data so that you, the consumer benefits? How do buyers know the data is genuine and how do you control who you share it with (your closest competitor might not be ideal).