Having a career in deepsea container shipping and also having a fascination for blockchain technology I often wonder how blockchain can be applied to real world container shipping. It is not easy to think how this could work. What kind of data is suitable for being stored in a blockchain?
Recently I noticed that Factom - a company that offers BaaS - has teamed up with SMARTRAC. Now here I can really see value being added for the container shipping industry. If RFID stickers can be applied to let's say the inside container door, the container's position can be tracked in real time and submitted into a blockchain. The market (cargo owners) has been demanding track & trace possibities especially on transport legs without so-called milestones (like passing a gate, container being handled by a crane, lifted off/on a ship etc.). Up to now these milestones were the easy part to capture.
With RFID the position can now be cemented in a blockchain with an undisputable timestamp about the whereabouts of the goods owned by a company. With RFID technology getting cheaper all the time, we now have a decent business model that could be tested fairly easy.
I will pursue this and anyone who wants to think with me and get onboard is more then welcome to contact with me
I am planning on aweekly update on Steemit. Catch you later!