The invention of the wheel was the biggest game changer that got us moving. It also started the
movement of goods from one location to another. This meant growth in trade and this lead to the
birth of the logistics business. It grew with growing trade and in 2015 the logistics industry accounts
for 10% of the GDP of USA.
The Paradox
Despite such a phenomenal growth the logistic industry has failed to change with the times resulting in
slow and cumbersome business practices and a great deal of difficulty in tracking the goods in
transit.
In a lot of way the industry still works the way goods were sent via ships to another countries hundred of years ago. It used to involve a lot of agents, loaders and an army of people who at times did the same task repeatedly with little added utility. The goods used to be at sea with no tracking availability for the entire course of their journey.
Today's businesses are dynamic and they need to take make or break decisions based on the
arrivals and departure of freight and an uncertainty can lead to great losses.
Take the case of Sam who has a small factory to produce hats. He purchases felt and other raw
material from different buyers. For his shipment he needed a motif to put as an add-on to be put on
the front side of the hat.
This motif was to be provided for by a new vendor.
Though the vendor had sent out the motifs but it got stuck en route.
With great difficulty it could be pointed out that the consignment was at the customs and withheld due to lack of documents.
By the time the news reached the sender a couple of days had passed and the custom department
had assigned the cargo to a warehouse for safe keeping. On one hand Sam was getting desperate to
get the parcel and on the other hand the custom warehouse was charging a hefty fee towards
warehouse charges. With every passing day the cost were going up for Sam and the deadline to
complete the order was approaching.
There was little Sam could do except facing losses and delays
on multiple fronts. He engaged a middle man to get things moving. When the material arrived he had to pay extra to the workers towards overtime to get the work completed.
The overall experience was bad for Sam.
Could Sam have done something differently to avoid such a situation.
At the time of writing this post ShipChain is working on implementing a simple to use and implement “Track and Trace” solution to handle all the logistic needs.
ShipChain would create a Ethereum blockchain based meeting place for businesses needing logistic
services and cargo service providers.
All the information would be available through a software interface that the buyer and the logistic
supplier can run and access from their desktop or mobile.
The SHIP coin(EC20 token) would be the money needed to carry out business on this platform.
The SHIP tokens can be obtained in the ICO (best way to get tokens at a cheaper price) or can be
purchased from ShipChain platform by paying USD,EUR etc or cryptocurrencies.
This platform is designed to overcome some of the inherent shortcomings in the logistics business.
It creates a path of utmost transparency where in the involved parties (sender & recipient)are
able to monitor & track the packages at all times. The carriers would be able to communicate clearly
using this platform.
2)It would give incentives to the carriers for utilizing more efficient routes.
It makes the logistics business more streamlined by introducing transparency, removing the
unwanted middlemen thus reducing the cost of transport.
4)It would be a transparent market places where logistics contracts would be awarded based on
performance.The lower costs would be passed onto the buyers. For the logistic providers it would
give smaller providers a level playing field to compete with bigger players sans the middle men and
enhance the efficiency of the logistic processes.
5)Full visibility of packages would prevent fraud, stealing and pilferage in part or full.
6)Delays would be better managed and may soon become a thing of the past.
Best of all shipChain would offer its API to help the current logistic softwares integrate with the
ShipChain platform this way it would be easy to use without learning too many new skills.
