Maersk, the Danish shipping company which has 18 to 20% of the market, did a proof of concept (POC) with IBM in September, tracking a container of flowers from Mombasa, on the coast of Kenya, to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, using digital documents with trackable containers.
Ramesh Gopinath, IBM’s vice president of blockchain research, said that in the September POC, the shipping cost $2,000 and the paperwork could be about $300, or 15 percent of the cargo’s value.
Traditionally, a simple shipment of refrigerated goods from East Africa to Europe can go through nearly 30 people and organizations, including more than 200 different interactions and communications among them, said the IBM announcement.
Using digital records and a blockchain can sharply reduce costs, although the actual savings won’t be known for a year or two until the blockchain is more widely used.
source: forbes.com
