Although the TradeLens platform will officially go offline in Q1 2023,
Maersk said it's not given up its effort to digitize the supply chain
industry.
United States technology company IBM and Danish logistics firm Maersk
have decided to discontinue their co-developed blockchain-backed supply
chain platform, TradeLens, citing a lack of “global industry
collaboration” as a key reason behind the decision.
Maersk stated
on Nov. 29 that it has begun taking immediate action to cease
operations on the platform which should take full effect by Q1 2023:
“The
TradeLens team is taking action to withdraw the offerings and
discontinue the platform [...] During this process all parties involved
will ensure that customers are attended to without disruptions to their
businesses.”
While the blockchain-based shipping solution was introduced by the two firms
in August 2018 to help industry participants adopt more efficient
international supply chain practices, Maersk stated the platform didn’t
reach a level of “commercial viability” to sustain operations:
“While
we successfully developed a viable platform, the need for full global
industry collaboration has not been achieved," said Maersk's head of
business platforms, Rotem Hershko. "As a result, TradeLens has not
reached the level of commercial viability necessary to continue work
and meet the financial expectations as an independent business.”
Maersk
said the firm would continue its efforts to digitize the supply chain
and increase industry innovation through alternative solutions to
achieve the desired ends that were envisioned through TradeLens.
TradeLens
functioned by tracking and processing critical supply chain data of
each shipment in real-time, before stamping a distributed and immutable record of events on-chain for all involved participants to access and validate.
Related: How blockchain technology is used in supply chain management?
Despite TradeLens not reaching the heights that IBM and Marersk first envisioned, the two companies managed to onboard over 150 companies onto the supply chain-focused blockchain which included a host of port operators, shipping companies and logistics providers.
Among those companies were two of the world’s largest container carriers, CMA CGM and Mediterranean Shipping Company, which integrated the system in October 2020.
The
discontinuation of TradeLens comes as data from IBM claims the platform
saved users an estimated 20% in documentation costs and reduced the
time it takes to ship goods by 40%.
According to Statista, blockchain technology makes keeping data records easier, more transparent, and more secure mostly due to its immutable nature.
Despite
this, several shortcomings continue to stall blockchain adoption in the
supply chain world, including high transaction costs, privacy concerns,
scalability issues and lack of industry collaboration, as evidenced by
the lagging adoption of TradeLens.
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-based-supply-chain-platform-canned-by-ibm-and-maersk
