AP Moller-Maersk has teamed up with technology giant IBM in its effort to avoid mountains of paperwork and target one of trade’s biggest barriers.
The two conglomerates have revealed plans to use blockchain technology to help transform the global supply chain, using a system built by them and based on the Hyperledger Fabric.
The idea is to make shipping companies, shippers and freight forwarders able to track the paper trail of tens of millions of shipping containers across the world.
With blockchain technology, the supply chain process will be digitized from end-to-end, having the potential to save the industry billions of dollars, IBM said.
Ibrahim Gokcen, chief digital officer at Maersk, said: “As a global integrator of container logistics with the ambition to digitize global trade, we are excited about this cooperation and its potential to bring substantial efficiency and productivity gains to global supply chains, while decreasing fraud and increasing security.
“The projects we are doing with IBM aim at exploring a disruptive technology such as blockchain to solve real customer problems and create new innovative business models for the entire industry.”
IBM and Maersk intend to work with a network of shippers, ports and customs authorities to promote their product, expected to go into production later this year.
</div><p ><strong>Making good on digital promise</strong></p><p >This could be seen as Maersk’s next step in making good <a href="http://www.tradewindsnews.com/TWplus/1193689/maersk-tankers-enters-the-space-age">on its promise to focus on new technologies.</a></p><p >Chief executive Soren Skou said last week the group <a href="http://www.tradewindsnews.com/liner/1221124/maersk-goes-digital-to-boost-its-revenue">is exploring new products to drive revenue growth.</a></p><p >Gokcen added: “We expect the solutions we are working on will not only reduce the cost of goods for consumers, but also make global trade more accessible to a much larger number of players.”</p><p >Through this new kind of data pipeline, each participant will be able to view the progress of good through the supply chain, without the enormous paperwork required before.</p><p >Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice-president of industry platforms at IBM, said: “We believe that this new supply chain solution will be a transformative technology with the potential to completely disrupt and change the way global trade is done.”</p></field><tag identifier="tag:organization@tradewindsnews.com,2015:IBM" relevance="0.99"/><tag identifier="tag:person@tradewindsnews.com,2015:Ibrahim_Gokcen" relevance="0.99"/><tag identifier="tag:person@tradewindsnews.com,2015:Soren_Skou" relevance="0.98"/><tag identifier="tag:organization@tradewindsnews.com,2015:AP_Moller_Maersk" relevance="1.0"/><tag identifier="tag:newstopics@tradewindsnews.com,2012:Disruptive_technologies" relevance="1.0"/></content></escenic></div></div>
