A Successful Supply Chain Pilot with Blockchain

Some players are up and running with blockchain

Early 2019, the project MeRS (Méditerranée Rh?ne Sa?ne) was initiated by the CGET (Commissariat Général à l'Egalité des Territoires), an initiative by the French Prime Minister. The aim was to challenge the maritime routes used by the freight traffic getting in and out the city of Lyon. This traffic should rather pass through the Port of Marseille Fos for obvious carbon efficiency goal. KeeeX was given the task of applying efficient technology to fully digitizing multimodal supply chain along the Rhone Valley, between Lyon and Marseille.  The study was conducted with the companies Marseille Gyptis International (in charge of Marseille's Cargo Community System CI5) and BuyCo (collaborative platform for container shipping).

Identified key issues were the profusion of paper documents, the lengthy process of transiting these papers from a place to another, the missing digital connection of many actors (truckers for instance, who do carry a lot of paper forms today). Most actors also stay largely unaware of truck or container positions, of ETAs (estimated time of arrival) that would help optimize terminal and loading resources. Because of this paper and even in the presence of digital documents, a lot of typing is done over and over, which not only wastes time but is also is error prone.

Most observers compile these issues in recommendations or attempts to deliver super portals or platforms, because it is clearly obvious that data interoperability is the key. Participants also lack the pictures and videos that would help troubleshoot claims and disputes. The global space also lacks the required precise and traceable measures of carbon emissions. Unfortunately, despite the huge ROI that can be achieved through digitization, participants remain reluctant to enter immaterial processes because of the assets at stake in the supply chain and the lack of trust between parties over data.

The MeRS experimentation was a success, involving the companies KemOne, Alteo and Transcausse in a variety of use cases. At top level, the operations proved significant improvements in process synchronization, transparency, digitization, integration among parties, and overall simplification.

Are verifiable pictures the new gold?

The experiments have shown a strong interest by the participants (warehouse or shipper staff, truckers, upstream and downstream operators like CCS, freight forwarders and platforms) for pictures of the transported goods (photo layers during stuffing and unloading for instance), of the containers (inside and outside, before taking responsibility for insurance and repair reasons), and most interestingly in the paper documents.

Such pictures are useful because: a/ they are verifiable and digitally signed, b/ they contain operational metadata enabling the automated retrieval of context (e.g. using a booking and container number), c/ they can be permanently opposed in the case of a dispute d/ they provide a stable and reusable source of information for machine learning and diagnosis systems, now and in the future.

We have delivered a mobile app, LogisteeeX, that lets users flash QR codes and OCR containers in a snap for defining context, then taking probative pictures like a standard camera phone does. This mobile app is the companion app to the KeeeX Stories generic multi standard API accessed from participant's back offices.

Which impacts due to knowledge of arrival dates and incidents?

The mobile app also lets participants declare ETAs, flash to set passage points (seen at gate events), click to declare incidents, click to sign consents, VGMs and otherwise useful information that helps anticipate resources (terminal space and stacking) or custom clearance.

This lets anticipation programs optimize terminal occupation for instance or produce better loading schedules. This also allows for the reduction of truck routes inside the terminals and ports for better fuel efficiency and less urban pollution.

Btw, app users just flash a QR code to parameterize and gain privileges. That's it. Then they interact with booking and container chains in a snap.

Do historicized registries outperform smart contracts?

What was experimented is the use of KeeeX Stories, a sidechain infrastructure that combines the use of the public blockchain Bitcoin for securing the system states at regular intervals, and unforgeable keeexed sequences of data, events and documents that form the "story" of some booking reference and container number, Global Shipment Identification Number (GSIN), vessel IMOs and parcel QR Code. This approach is scalable, carbon efficient and auditable at file level.

This approach outperforms blockchain smart contracts (as exemplified by Ethereum Solidity) in a number of ways. These are not useful at storing data, extremely expensive at historicizing even the simplest states and are subject to a wide range of operational, cyber security and fee issues. They are also very hardly evolutive and poorly auditable. When not implemented on top of a public blockchain, they raise further governance and cyber issues.

At tech level, the KeeeX Stories scheme demonstrates the outstanding value of historicized registries versus blockchain smart contracts to achieve similar goals.

Can the “Standard + Platform” model be ditched away?

Most actors discuss or plan digitization under very usual settings. They await standards produced by extremely lengthy and time-consuming working groups (it takes two to more years to the European Commission to state on a tentative data interchange standard for customs for instance). They also plan or design huge single window platforms or APIs. The intent to centralize and exploit the Data produced by an entire ecosystem is generally perfectly clear, whether the initiative is state based or private owned.

These ways of thinking are outdated when considering that Data can be shared according to group specific settings. This becomes feasible when both the Data schema and the Data itself can be verified as genuine and may thus enter totally automated processes. KeeeX and the blockchain address this. This allowed us for delivering an open source JSON schema library that provides combination of a useful subset of the TradeLens API plus extras, and may extend to arbitrary standards such as UNCEFACT, S3000L and more. Being open source, the schema library is open to contributions and variations. Peers are free to define their own, and useful schemas will emerge gracefully from the community instead of top down.

The KeeeX Stories for Logistics platform thus provides zero wait times or friction to operations. Data formats are free as much as Data itself. We need no more platform and standards. A simple universal API plus open source schemas does the job.

Can censorship resistance and immutable audit trails be carbon efficient?

Using Bitcoin as a public blockchain of reference at regular time intervals provides censorship resistance and permanent immutability of audit trails. We use our own human friendly Merkle tree certificates as well as Chainpoint proofs upon requests.

Thanks to its human readable file-based sidechain and Merkle trees, KeeeX provides the only perfectly auditable solution to date. In case of a dispute, the entire proof record can be audited manually by non-tech expert.

Mutualizing writes to Bitcoin achieves ultimate carbon efficiency (writes cost less watt hour than an email).

How do trustless interaction and data sovereignty enable digitization?

Within this framework, all parties in a supply chain process may read and write to a story the unforgeable proofs that some data exists at some place in a given sequence, from a verifiable trusted author, at a certain verifiable date and geolocation. KeeeX proof chains are by default non-inversible and provide no meaningful information to general viewers (of course the system may not be "publicly" accessible), beyond a data category plus what was explicitly purposely shared there. Proof chains provide access to real data under strict author and owner permissions on their own servers if wanted. The proof layer thus does not act as a market place for data, nor does it view the data itself.

KeeeX Stories for logistics thus appears as a data respectful and sovereign solution, with no attempt nor even possibility to run unwanted AI on Data.

How does blockchain grade transaction signing protect against insider attacks?

Thanks to KeeeX technology, corrupt data cannot be produced or will be detected by construction. All data is digitally signed by one or more private keys and certificates, some of which being under sole user control.

Furthermore, KeeeX Stories lets proof writes be performed in a way similar to Crypto Currency transactions: using a private key under user unique control.

The global approach thus warrants to all parties that no fake data can be produced by an actor having or gaining access to the infrastructure. This too acts as a superior digitization enabler.

So, what's next?

The KeeeX Stories for Logistics blockchain framework plus mobile app has entered production and is made available to supply chain companies willing to register for themselves or for interaction with peers. We are currently working on specific photo uses cases with major actors.

KeeeX Stories also provides the trustless underlying structure for a group of companies calling themselves the Green Squadron. This collective currently aims at

·      reducing Vessel emissions

·      tracking carbon and pollutant emissions,

·      assessing the quality of fuel and engine situations of use

·      using port drones to reduce port footprint for document transport and resource usage verification (terminal stacking usage)

·      auditing and publishing the results

·      using such data to produce better and cleaner supply chain multimodal routes

·      running cargo or vessel expertises for insurance or value matters

The same solution generalizes to virtually all Vessel data digitization, including security and staff certificates, insurance claims and repairs, bulk filling pictures for insurance and theft etc.

Using the same technology we are also involved in multimodal urban mobility, parts and luxury goods traceability, transfer of ownership and anti-counterfeiting, food traceability, and bank account transferability.