Distributed ledger technology for document and workflow management in trade and logistics

Abstract

Logistics management plays a crucial role in the execution and success of international trades. Current solutions for logistics management suffer from a number of issues. One of the major areas for improvement is inconsistent data and lack of trust and transparency between multiple participants. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) or blockchain has the inherent characteristics to address this issue, and is well suited to be applied to supply chain document and workflow management. This paper demonstrates how to apply DLT to achieve a higher level of efficiency through consistent data store, automated workflow process, and tamper-proof transaction history for provenance in the supply chain.