Century-old and established colossal logistics company, United Parcel Service (UPS) recently extended their thoughts on possession of blockchain technology in their delivery service strategies. The company believes the technology could help them manage package more efficiently throughout the global supply chain.
As per the recent news and facets of information published this Thursday by the USPTO (US Patent & Trademark Office), the Georgia based logistic giant UPS has registered a patent that involves usage of the blockchain, specifically the DLT (distributed ledger technology) to track their shipments anywhere on the international route of the supply chain. The DLT would also enable real-time tracking of package belonging to multiple carriers in an international supply chain.
The UPS was purported to be registering the patent on February 16th, 2018. The patent elaborates the problem that even after lots of efforts to find the most optimized path for minimizing cost and efforts, it is still very difficult to coordinate logistics for shipments. The communication and coordination between various logistics get difficult especially when there are more than one logistics involved in the transport network.
The author explained in the application:
”There are plenty of cases where it provides good benefits and eases to logistics when shipments by a particular logistic partner are shipped from the origin to the destination with few additional legs and segment. But shortly it gets difficult to contact the branches of different logistics carriers shipping the segments. One of the main issues comes when a special requirement is registered against any shipment, the communication must be sent to all logistics carrier to ensure the special requirements, and this is where the coordination and communication become harder.”
The UPS now targets to mitigate the problem by generating an autonomous system that is accessed by anyone in the network and uses the blockchain technology ledger to track shipments and packages through multiple logistic carriers involved.
The procedure ensures the package tracking as soon as the package is scanned into the packaging facility. The system identifies the route, selects the shortest path and accurate one and lists all logistics carriers present in a network that will be utilized. Now, as the shipment begins to travel to its destination, all the updates in real time will be updated in the distributed ledger. This step ensures all carriers to be known whether the logistic companies and service providers are meeting the special requirements or not.
The writers of patent make a note of extending the foundation of the technology stating that in various other forums the similar system could be exercised that is a collection of all related DLT networks which uses the smarter option of contracts for payment methods. Further, if the system is built over a public available blockchain it may involve various cryptocurrencies and digital assets like Bitcoins present in a decentralized manner to conduct their payments and money transfers.
Such assets and currencies in the digital medium will be further used for transactions of the various shipment units, logistics etc.
