Supply Chain - Reading Assignment

  1. Increasing safety of food as it moves from producers to consumers. Being able to backtrack potential contamination sources should that occur.

  2. Increased integrity of food quality, expiration dates, etc.

  3. Improve selection of suppliers, quickly identify contamination sources, reduce legal liabilities.

  4. Means of ensuring integrity in the supply chain.

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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?
    The blockchain in question, a private database co-developed by IBM, is designed to provide the retailer with a way to indelibly record a list of transactions indicating how meat has flowed through a commercial network, from producers to processors to distributors to grocers—and finally, to consumers.
  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    It will provide greater transparency to customers about the origins and histories of food they are purchasing.
  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?
    Companies within Walmart’s supply chain can develop a trust based around the immutability of the blockchain.
  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    The missing piece was a shared forum where companies could begin to see each others’ transactions and develop trust.
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  1. To provide authentic food to consumers.
  2. Transparency.
  3. Customer trust. Business growth.
  4. authenticity of product.
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1.What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution? A: Decentralize DB access to untrusted parties adding data to it also.

2.How will this new solution benefit us as customers? A: Transparent Food traceablilty will help prevent and isolate food chain supply problems.

3.How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation? A: Transparency will ease verification and in case of problem it will split responsability between all supplyiers.

4.What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain? A: Unable to Trust partners, in Blockchain no one needs to trust anyone.

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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?
    Law and consumer safety/protection - more supervision, stricter health guidelines and better record-keeping.

  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    Confidence: We can see where the food came from, when it was made, when it expires, farm, plant, factory and transaport details maybe too. Safety: All parties in the logistical chain can remove unsafe produce at once, and as soon as unsafe produce is detected, by exactly pin-pointing which batches are bad.

  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?
    Both above, avoiding huge revenue losses from low consumer confidence and alarm, avoid damages and court fees when trialed for public health endangerment.

  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    a Forum, where all the logistical and produce parties involved in a chain for a given product, could real-time talk to each other and check on the status of the produce.

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  1. Avoiding future food contamination by having the supply chain tracked on a blockchain
  2. Transparency and better trust on where the food was sourced from
  3. Pinpoint where in the supply chain a problem has occurred can prevent a large scale contamination from spreading, benefits on PR by offering transparency possible cost savings
  4. A transparent medium where trust can established between company who supply each-other
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What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?

  • Being able to deliver good quality products to its clients.

How will this new solution benefit us as customers?

  • We will be able to validate that the product from its origin to the store has undergone the necessary steps to comply with all the health regulations making it proper for human ingestion.

How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?

  • Some innecessary layers of processes that won’t accred much to the business can be eliminated and thus, lowering operational costs.

What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?

  • A shared infrastructure where companies involved in the supply chain could see each other’s transactions and develop trust.
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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?

To be able to tract inventory. In this test case, they will be tracking pork from farmer to the store.

  1. How will this new solution benefit us as customers?

It will allow consumers to track the food from producer to shipper to importer to the food shelves. This will lead to increased trust, transparency, and hopefully safety.

  1. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?

I could see this solution benefiting Walmart in a number of ways. Customer trust and loyalty could improve with this increased transparency. It would also allow for quicker, and more targeted food recalls in the future. This would save lives and save money for the sellers. It would also be an improvement when it comes to inventory tracking through multiple parties.

  1. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?

A shared immutable forum where companies could see each others actions and shipments. This is a great way to build and gain trust between different actors.

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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?
    To better understand and track the product from their origin to how they are transported.
  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    It provides transparency of the product they purchase, from where it is from to how it is transported.
  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?
    Improve customer sanctification, able to local source of issue when issue occurs.
  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    Transparency of information.
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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?
    Traceability of food. This would allow Walmart to target recalls to specific origins (farms/distributor with a truck storage temperature problem, etc.) and maintain consumer confidence to be able to continue selling untainted product.

  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    We will not have to worry that a specific food has a danger of contamination as any originally found would be specifically targeted and removed off the shelves.

  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?
    When a consumer gets sick off your food, it’s bad press. By being proactive in addressing potential contaminants, WalMart will be able to say that is has identified the link causing illness and has removed it off the shelves. It also puts onus of contamination on a specific farmer/vendor/distributor, etc, removing legal liability from WalMart.

  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    A shared database where companies are transparent and other companies/competitors can be rest assured that their partners are acting with integrity/care that is needed to provide quality products.

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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?

It was the key for avoiding future food contamination, with tracking of its origin and movement till customer (for example pork in China). Blockchain provides more secure, more efficient and reliable way to store and provide data about entire supply chain of food.

  1. How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    confidence and safety, with checking of product quality before buying it

  2. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as corporation?

  • Customer increase in confidence into and will to buy food at Walmart.
  • Reducing the cost of supply chain, with less paperwork and fast access to data.
  • Quick identification of contaminated food and its removal from stores.
  1. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    Trust between partners involved in supply chain.
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  • What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?
    Transparency and accuracy in tracking their distribution channels.

  • How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    Consumers will be able to rely on the transparency.

  • How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?
    Walmart will have a solution to tracking product and sifting tainted foods while marketing a wholesome product that can be easily verifiable. Becomes much harder to get away with inconsistencies because it includes details related to farm origins, factory data, expiration dates, storage temperatures, and shipping.

  • What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    A shared forum where companies could begin to see each others’ transactions and develop trust.

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Food Safety is a very important issue for me, and this very issue was what sparked my interest in blockchain to begin with. I’m very glad we covered this topic!

  1. The main motivation discussed was food safety.
  2. We can have piece of mind in eating, or feeding loved ones, knowing we most probably won’t die or become very ill.
  3. Cost saving in shipping, and in liability costs for death or illness.
  4. The ability to trust anyone in the supplychain, and the confidence it brings, just wasn’t there.
  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?
    ti prevent disaster scenarios in the food industries has happened with Spinach in USA or Milk Powder in China

  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    We can track all the shell-life of a product and we can stop it faster in case there are problems

  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?
    More trust from the customers means more money for the company

  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    it was a shared forum where companies could begin to see each others’ transactions and develop trust,

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  1. to know the origin on their products
  2. us as customer we will be confident in what we are buying
  3. it will bring credibility to their market and easy track their products
  4. the origin and source of the products
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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution? This was to avoid health and safety risks associated with contaminated or bad food that hurts the consumers, the retailer (Walmart) and all other businesses upstream. Tracing the origin can eliminate the uncertainty in the whole lot.
  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers? We can gain more confidence in the safety of the food we purchase due to the added confirmation of its origin and the conditions it was stored and prepared.
  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation? It can benefit Walmart by making it a more reliable food retailer.
  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain? The missing piece according to Paul Chang was a shared forum where companies could begin to see each others’ transactions and develop trust.
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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution? Walmart wants to increase the traceability of each step in the supply chain to be ready to manage case of food contamination.
  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers? We’ll be able to know istantly to all information about the food we’ll want to buy, like quality, age, cultivation and production methods, and so on.
  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation? Walmart will be able to track easier and faster the supply process to control and improve it more directly.
  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain? The missing piece was a shared forum where companies could begin to see each others’ transactions and develop trust.
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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution? - the motivation was the E. coli in tainted spinach.
  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers? - ability to track and pinpoint where tainted goods were sent so they are not consumed.
  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation? - ability to recall only products that are tainted as opposed to pulling all of the product.
  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain? - a shared forum where companies could begin to see each other’s transactions and develop trust.
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  • What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?
    To tackle the breakout of food contamination and food poisoning.

  • How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    It will benefit customers by providing the history of the food products on an immutable records.

  • How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?
    It will give Walmart an upperhand and enable it leverage blockchain in its other subsidiaries.

  • What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    Transparency in transactions which lead to lack of trust.

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  1. What is the motivation behind Walmart investing in a blockchain solution?
    They want to enable a means of tracking food from the source till the store. This would enable tracing the origins of problems with food quality a lot easier.
  2. How will this new solution benefit us as customers?
    We will feel safe that the food they sell will not have an immediate effect on our health…
  3. How will this new solution benefit Walmart as a corporation?
    They will be able to claim that the food is safe and there will be no immediate effect on the consumers health. Also they will probably be able to make the sourcing and delivery process more efficient and profitable.
  4. What was the missing piece in their solution before they found blockchain?
    There was no efficient tractability of the conditions of the journey of the food from the source to the store.
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