Blockchain Explained Part I

Blockchain can be used to manage and monitor every aspecft of a logistics chain in real time. Photo: TMW Systems

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A while back, my boss, HDT editor in chief Deborah Lockridge, asked me to get up to speed on emerging blockchain technology with an eye toward doing a web article.

I duly went out and read a few articles on the subject – but I didn’t get it. So I found a couple of promising YouTube videos and watched them. And it still didn’t click for me. It just seemed to be an incredibly complex concept that I was never going to grasp.

Last week, TMW Systems hosted a web seminar to explain blockchain and its forthcoming move into this technology and market. This seminar was better – but I still didn’t have a handle on what, exactly, was going on with blockchain. So I called TMW’s executive vice president, Tim Leonard, the following Monday, and he was graciously able to talk me through this new technology.

Turns out I was overthinking it.

So if you’re like I was, having trouble wrapping your head around what blockchain is and how it works, let me see if I can help you out. (I mean, that’s my job, after all.)

The first thing you need to understand is that blockchain is an internet-based system that enables efficient, fully-transparent agreements for companies that need to ship, or actual ship goods. It’s a logistics-enabler.

In a way, it’s sort of a mini-internet. Think of Amazon: It’s a slick, powerful commerce network in its own right. But it is powerless without the internet. But when it is plugged into the internet, it becomes an incredibly powerful and efficient tool for buying, selling, shipping and receiving goods.

Same basic concept, here.

Now, imagine there’s a brand-new widget rolling off an assembly line right now …Read the rest of this story

Source:: http://www.truckinginfo.com/blog/truck-tech/story/2017/10/blockchain-explained-part-i.aspx