The Benefits of Blockchain in Manufacturing Execution

As the applications and benefits of utilizing private blockchains continue to emerge, one area of key potential can be found in Manufacturing Execution.

And although the technology can be applied in simple manufacturing businesses, blockchain has the potential to really shine in those industries with a high level of documentation, certification and serialization/control, authentication, traceability needs, including component certifications for safety and more.

Some of these industries include Food, Produce, Aerospace, Automotive, Healthcare, Medical Devices, Luxury Goods and Pharmaceuticals among others.

And as many of you are starting to learn, blockchain is the perfect application type when it comes to multi-party cross enterprise applications as well as automating shared supply chains and Manufacturing Execution logistics within and between these extended environments.

Even more importantly is the ability for private blockchains to capture and create immutable and readily accessible records in a secure and rapid manner versus traditional solutions especially those requiring digital signatures.

But even before moving beyond in-house manufacturing plants, there's also multiple potential benefits available to streamline and co-ordinate the activities of several important groups on site, including Raw/Bill of Materials, Scheduling, Logistics, Packaging, Quality, Testing, Shipping as well as Equipment Control, Cleaning and Maintenance among others.

Several years ago when I was with PricewaterhouseCoopers, I took the time to personally become GMP Certified for Distribution, both Basic and Advanced Levels, and became familiar with the heavy documentation requirements throughout all related processes.

Manufacturing of just one batch can require paper documentation that when stacked up is 12 inches or more high! And as more and more companies move to digitization, all of these manually completed documents are often then scanned into digital format for both storage and accessibility purposes.

As you can imagine, the work effort which goes into creating these documents and then managing them is almost monumental in itself, but work efforts become even more daunting when there's a mistake, issue or other problem encountered with a batch as it moves along and into shared supply chains.

As mentioned earlier, digital signatures are key to these production processes and not all digital signatures are created equal! Private blockchains in use for digital signature purposes utilize 500 times more powerful cryptography to secure a signature on a smart contract than bank-grade security, which is globally trusted to keep our money safe.

According to KNNX, the below is how this advanced level of security is achieved:

"Signatures on a smart contract are nearly impossible to forge because they follow highly complex “public key cryptography” (PKC), which in turn is based on number theory.

For instance, each individual who is digitally signing a contract owns a unique public key and a unique private key, which as a pair protect sensitive information or trigger transactions.

The public key is known to all stakeholders involved in the contract, and proves the identity of that specific individual.

The private key, on the other hand, is secret and is privy only to a specific individual."

So diving a bit deeper, how does this work?

"For digital signatures on a smart contract, the individual can use his/her private key to access and “digitally sign” the smart contract, which also requires the public key.

No one else with access to the smart contract can derive the individual’s private key, or forge the signature using only the public key.

Yet, the public key which is linked to the private key verifies that the contract was signed using the private key, and thus authenticates the signature or an associated transaction.

Since cryptography relies on number theory, extremely difficult mathematical problems, and systems that are constantly evolving, blockchain-based digital signatures on smart contracts are nearly 100% fool-proof.

All of the above only represent some of the potential benefits of utilizing a private blockchain solution for managing Manufacturing Execution within your production environments.

To get a better understanding of how a private blockchain can be applied to streamlining documentation capture/storage and also better secure your manufacturing approvals with blockchain digital signatures, feel free to reach out to see these solutions and learn more!

Jeff Ashcroft

416.990.6433

[email protected]

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