A technology once thought of principally as a means of securing cryptocurrency transactions appears ready to move into manufacturing and supply chain. Over the past couple of years, we’ve covered announcements related to: blockchain offerings designed to improve industrial process efficiencies and reduce costs; how blockchain is being used for food, beverage and pharmaceutical supply chains; and blockchain’s application in industrial control system cybersecurity.
While blockchain is clearly making inroads into industrial use, Dave Medina, vice president of industry verticals at QAD (a supplier of ERP software) argues that, to become a cryptographically secure, trusted network for industry’s use, blockchain requires three things: a public key cryptography, a distributed (peer-to-peer) network with a shared ledger, and a governing program that contains the controlling blockchain protocol.
