NextGen Supply Chain Conference — IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced, that its global supply chain transformation has won a 2019 NextGen Supply Chain Leadership Award for the innovative use of blockchain and IoT. The distinction recognizes the world’s first enterprise computer hardware partnership using these disruptive technologies to achieve end-to-end supply chain security. Using IBM Blockchain and IoT, IBM’s supply chain improved traceability and single source-of-truth to each network partner to improve product authentication and reduce warranty costs.
IBM’s supply chain organization manages the critical supply chain operations of engineering, logistics, manufacturing, and sales transaction support. It digitized physical assets such as hard disk drives, while registering asset transactions throughout the product life cycle into an immutable shared ledger using blockchain and IoT as part of this award-winning initiative. One key project began as a Proof-of-Concept in 2018 between IBM and Seagate Technology, which came to a successful conclusion in March 2019. Both companies are now working toward a potential pilot deployment that may be expanded to include more suppliers.
“Industry 4.0 is an end-to-end industrial transformation, in which mastering the 21st century digital supply chain – enabled by blockchain, IoT, and AI technologies – is a critical success factor for enterprises to gain a competitive business advantage,” said Ron Castro, VP of Supply Chain, IBM. “With these innovative technologies revolutionizing the entire supply chain by lowering transactional costs and accelerating processes, harnessing their transformative power is imperative for executives to build transparent, intelligent and predictive supply chains at scale.
IBM’s supply chain transformation initiative contained three separate, yet complimentary project use cases to make a positive business impact as blockchain was infused into IBM’s supply chain. The three application cases include:
“The success of IBM’s initiative can enable extremely effective confirmation of provenance and authenticity of assets, while optimizing security and efficiencies by simplifying and accelerating documentation exchanges between supply chain partners, ” said John Morris, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Seagate Technology. “Additionally, it potentially increases productivity by eliminating redundant processes, while helping to strengthen regulatory compliance and build trust among all key stakeholders.”
IBM’s Vice President of Supply Chain, Ron Castro, presented his 2019 NextGen Supply Chain Conference keynote titled, Applying Augmented Intelligence (A.I.), Blockchain and Predictive Analytics to Expand End-to-End Visibility and Improve Operational Efficiency on Tuesday, April 16 from 10:15 – 11:15 a.m. CT.
About IBM Watson Supply Chain
A world leader in AI software, services and technology for business, IBM has deployed Watson solutions in thousands of engagements with clients across 20 industries and 80 countries. IBM Watson Supply Chain enables forward thinking supply chain business professionals to improve business outcomes by providing AI-powered insights, B2B collaboration and orchestration that mitigates operational impact and business risk. For more information visit: https://www.ibm.com/supply-chain
Contacts:
Erik Mason
External Communications – IBM Watson Customer Engagement
erik.mason@ibm.com
508-208-6617