One area of supply chain management that I have not seen much written about in terms of blockchain and have been focused on is supplier information management. Many other areas that have been written about ad nauseum include transaction settlement, audit transparency, ethical sourcing, shipping data, compliance management, provenance, automation, food safety, and brand protection.

It’s interesting more has not been written about supplier information management since blockchain can directly address core problems I have heard about from our customers. The primary problems include manual processing, inconsistent documentation, lengthy onboarding times, and risk management concerns.

The transparency, security, trust and efficiency that a good blockchain solution provides can directly address these issues. Moreover, blockchain enables an innovative approach, one that leverages a new business model, to solve these cross-industry problems.

Add greater visibility and efficiency across supply chains

At Chainyard, we have designed and built a new solution for supplier information management, one that reduces risks through use of a trusted digital identity secured on the blockchain, an identity that is owned by the owner, to allow them to more efficiently interact with customers, suppliers and third party vendors.

Chainyard, a leading blockchain consulting company, announced its first solution, the Trust Your Supplier (TYS) blockchain network, in August.

The Trust Your Supplier network is a cross-industry source of supplier information and identity helping to simplify and accelerate the on-boarding and lifecycle management process. TYS was built to be a cross-industry blockchain network to facilitate procurement functions within an organization. The network’s first use case is focused on supplier onboarding and validation.

Chainyard has partnered with IBM and other Fortune 500 companies such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, GlaxoSmithKline, Lenovo, Nokia, Schneider Electric, and Vodafone, to launch the permissioned blockchain network. IBM, along with these other companies, is working together to act as the private blockchain’s governance board to guide the product roadmap. As with all private blockchains, only permissioned buyers, suppliers, and third-party verifiers can access the TYS network.

The IBM “Blockchain as a Service” platform is a leading enterprise blockchain platform that is based on The Linux Foundation’s open source Hyperledger Fabric. IBM Blockchain is a public cloud service that customers can use to build secure blockchain networks. At its core blockchain is a transparent and tamper-proof digital ledger that enables organizations to securely deploy blockchain-based solutions.

I worked directly with IBM to ensure that Trust Your Supplier received the “Ready for IBM Blockchain” designation. Having this validation attests to the high level of achievement for the solution providing Chainyard with the satisfaction that the integration meets the highest standards. Moreover, obtainment of the designation is giving companies a high confidence in the solution leading to a strong demand to join the network. Together, the achievement and strong demand, are giving Chainyard an edge as a blockchain consultancy.

If you would like to get more information visit our website to request a demo.

From time to time, we invite industry thought leaders, academic experts and partners, to share their opinions and insights on current trends in blockchain to the Blockchain Pulse blog. While the opinions in these blog posts are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBM, this blog strives to welcome all points of view to the conversation.

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