E-commerce giant Amazon has patented a Distributed Ledger based system to ensure the authenticity in their supply chain and delivery of goods to the customer. US Patent and Trademark Office approved Amazon’s DLT system three tears after its initial filing. This new initiative from Amazon will increase the authenticity of customer goods and improve customer satisfaction.
Amazon’s system comprises data from distributors, manufacturers and suppliers that build an open framework. The collected data will be neatly packaged in the framework for the consumer. The new system developed by the company aims to improve trust through an enterprise service platform and allow the parties to track and map global supply chains. The tracking solution along the supply chain helps in identifying the product by the end-user.
The System developed by Amazon helps the parties in the supply chain like manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and couriers to add events after registering with a certification authority. On satisfying a certification rule, a record will be added to transfer the item. Whenever an item is added to the catalogue, the information of that item will be transferred to the starting of the ledger of the item. The certification authority can apply rules for testing and certifying the quality of the item through the supply chain.
Amazon argued that the DLT system can protect the data from manipulation and alteration and helps in avoiding bottlenecks in managerial problems of a centralized authority.
Amidst COVID-19, the world supply chain will become faster, smarter and shorter. Companies are moving out of China to other Asian countries like India, Vietnam and Indonesia. These countries have high potential domestic market and therefore companies will be able to find market there. This makes supply chain shorter and faster. Amazon’s new blockchain supply chain applications have great scope in these emerging markets, because of its immutability.
Blockchain is becoming an interesting field for tech giants. Recently IBM launched Hyperledger 2.0 in their blockchain network. Blockchain systems cannot be manipulated and is an open framework, therefore the end user can track their products in the supply chain. Amazon describes this as the digital trust from first mile of an item’s supply chain to its last.
