Samsung Considering Blockchain Tech For Shipment Logistics

The technology giant and integral solutions provider Samsung Electronics is considering a blockchain based system to keep track of their shipment logistics, according to an article by Bloomberg. The Korean manufacturer could save up to 20% of its expenses in this field, being one of the first enterprises to leverage blockchain at a really big scale.

Song Kwang-woo, the blockchain chief of SDS (Samsung Data Systems), a subsidiary of the company that deals with logistics and information systems, declared that Samsung was eyeing the use of a distributed ledger platform to manage thousands of shipments all around the world. This would effectively push the actual state of blockchain tech to new heights, passing from a new and exciting technology to an actual usable one, at least on this kind of application.

Blockchain tech was considered one of the most promising engineering achievements of this century, but apart from its main application to the date (cryptocurrencies), it has not been yet leveraged seriously for other purposes. Samsung ended 2017 as the world’s top smartphone maker, shipping 317.3 million units in the year. Now imagine a blockchain system capable of managing these number of shipments with a high complexity. But, according to the report, it would manage all of Samsung Electronics shipments, not only smartphones. That includes also replacement parts and parts manufactured for third-party customers (like Apple).

Samsung SDS is no small company, and it has enough manpower to do the task: the company has a staff of 7,000 IT-related workers, about 95 engineers, 1,150 masters holders, and 530 IT developers and business consultants. They did not comment on a possible timeline for the implementation of the said system, or at what stages of its design it was. If this is really done, it will contribute to the implementation of blockchain tech in other key areas where it can also be beneficial.