Walmart uses blockchain to manage its inventory
Walmart’s supply chain network extends globally, managing approximately 1.3 billion SKUs (stock-keeping units) and a volume of 90 million square feet of inventory annually. Platforms only See website has a robust algorithm that performs the research for bitcoin traders and makes trading easy. Moreover, it has helped many beginners to get started with bitcoin trading. Blockchain is an emerging technology for supply chain management that can bring significant benefits to both retailers and suppliers in terms of transparency, reliability and cost savings.
This post will cover blockchain and how Walmart plans to use it for its supply chain management. The importance of blockchain to Walmart lies in the transparency that this emerging technology offers, allowing Walmart to track and manage its inventory with minimal cost and significant transparency.
Blockchain technology allows Walmart to track any asset that leaves the business, whether a shipment from an international supplier or a product returned from Walmart stores. This technology will also enable Walmart to monitor its global network in real time, providing insight into any disruptions or delays before they occur.
Current operations of Walmart to implement blockchain technology
Walmart is currently working with IBM and the Tsinghua University National Engineering Laboratory for E-Commerce Technologies in Beijing, China, as part of a blockchain solution that will track pork from China to the United States. Walmart’s efforts with blockchain technology focus on transparency, reliability and cost savings.
Transparency is created through the ability to track assets at all nodes in the supply chain process. Trust is established through the immutability of blockchain technology and immutable compliance checks throughout each transaction. Users can reduce costs through reduction of time spent on auditing and traceability checks that are automated in a blockchain environment. Walmart’s supply chain has a global reach and complexity.
The huge amounts of data collected from this network are huge in number, making optimization and tracking difficult. By using blockchain technology, Walmart can achieve efficiencies by reducing the time spent on auditing and traceability checks while optimizing processes across multiple international locations. Walmart is currently testing its solution with suppliers to verify cost savings in the region of $100 million per year over the next three years.
Below are four steps Walmart is taking to implement blockchain technology in its supply chain:
1) Implementation of Blockchain for shipping inventory to the US:
The user can implement blockchain technology at any point in the supply chain process; However, in the case of Walmart’s implementation, with this technology, Walmart will be able to track each step of this process on a blockchain-based record. For example, once a shipment has reached its destination (either by air or sea), a similar IoT solution will scan the product and verify compliance with federal standards related to food safety and quality.
Once the product has reached its destination, Walmart’s new blockchain solution will be able to track that asset across the supply chain process to verify that every step of the way, from production to receipt at a US Walmart store, that asset has remained intact condition and compliance.
Blockchain technology dramatically improves the tracking and management of inventory in its stores. Like many retailers, Walmart’s low-priced products are subject to frequent returns, a problem. But by using this technology in their stores, inventory can be monitored at all times – including days earlier when products are still on sale – which offers significant advantages over today’s solutions.
2) Implementation of Blockchain for receiving inventory in the US:
By tracking and monitoring global inventory, Walmart can save thousands of dollars daily. With blockchain technology, Walmart can timestamp each list at its point of origin and use those timestamps to track it through the supply chain process, including back through its network of suppliers.
Walmart can verify compliance at each step. In addition, by documenting where and when each item was received from suppliers into Walmart’s system in real time, Walmart gains additional insight into disruptions in the supply chain process before they occur.
3) Develop an application area for retailers:
With time stamping, Walmart can audit every component of the supply chain process in real time. That includes identifying any disruptions or delays before they occur. For example, Walmart can use this technology to identify inventory that is not yet adequately staged in its stores and therefore may be wasted. With this information and the additional insight gained by using blockchain technology, Walmart can then adjust operations (eg adding a new shipment) as needed to prevent unnecessary waste and reduce costs in the future.
4) Reduce product returns:
In addition to these benefits for suppliers and shipping businesses, blockchain technology also has tremendous potential to reduce product returns from Walmart stores. With this technology, Walmart can identify when a customer returns an item purchased online at the time of sale. Blockchain technology can trace inventory back to the original shipment in real time.
It gives Walmart valuable, previously unavailable insight into where and how to adjust for future shipments. This transparency gives Walmart a huge advantage over traditional methods of auditing inventory, which require days or weeks after the fact to identify where and why returns are occurring.
