Since its introduction, blockchain technology has created a tremendous buzz. Though it was originally developed for the digital currency, Bitcoin, the tech community is discovering other potential uses for the technology. Specifically, a recent Forbes article emphasized how blockchain technology could improve manufacturing this year.
What is Blockchain?
First, let’s discuss the basics of blockchain. Blockchain technology allows digital information to be distributed but not copied. Don and Alex Tapscott, authors of Blockchain Revolution, defined blockchain as “an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value.” Fortunately, like the internet and other technology, you don’t need to know how the blockchain works to use it. But if you’d like to learn more, check out the video below.
Benefits of Blockchain
In general, blockchain has the ability to transform traditional business models. It offers many business benefits, including greater transparency, enhanced security, improved traceability, increased efficiency and speed of transactions, and reduced costs. According to Gartner, “the business value-add of blockchain will grow to slightly more than $176 billion by 2025, and then it will exceed $3.1 trillion by 2030.”
Blockchain in the Manufacturing Industry
Forbes emphasized that blockchain has the most potential to deliver business value in the manufacturing industry. Likewise, according to Capgemini Research Institute’s study, blockchain technology can improve manufacturing businesses’ supply chain efficiency by:
- Increasing transparency and responsiveness.
- Helping the end-consumer definitively identify if a product is manufactured by a given brand, which ensures authenticity and reduces counterfeits.
- Enabling organizations to quickly trace contamination to its source and mitigate against costly and a potentially reputation-damaging mass recall of products.
These supply chain advancements could positively impact the manufacturing industry by increasing cost savings, reducing risks, averting product recalls and more. Capgemini’s study further revealed that 87 percent of organizations are in the early experimental stages, 10 percent are at the advanced stage of experimentation and 3 percent are deploying blockchain at scale. Though blockchain adoption is in its early stages across all business industries, manufacturers are leading the way. Is your business ready to adopt blockchain technology?