Blockchain in Action: Combined With IoT, Blockchain Can Fight COVID

Most people at least know that blockchain is the technology that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are built on, but a digital ledger that timestamps and orders transactions in an easily trackable and immutable way has a lot more uses.

In this third article in the PYMNTS’ Blockchain in Action Series, we’ll look at how the Internet of Things (IoT) can be combined with blockchain technology to make supply chain management far more effective, efficient and safe.

Read more: Blockchain in Action: How to Track Anything in Real Time

See also: Blockchain in Action: TradeLens Connects Shipping, Customs, Trade Financing

About 10% of all pharmaceutical products in the global supply chain are fake, according to the World Health Organization.

Two years ago, Singapore-based Zuellig Pharma teamed up with top global pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck to test eZTracker, a blockchain-based tracking system designed to spot fake and expired pharmaceuticals, starting with its Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil. The system has also been used to track COVID vaccines to ensure they haven’t expired.

The system is fairly straightforward, and works like many blockchain supply chain systems: Scannable QR codes are attached to each dose and each carton of the vaccine, which is scanned at each scheduled stop and information uploaded to the blockchain, where the data cannot be changed or erased, and is viewable by everyone in the system.

Read also: PYMNTS Crypto Basics Series: What’s a Blockchain and How Does It Work?

But when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines, the problems get worse. The vaccines expire quickly, and some must be kept at extremely low temperatures — as low as -70 degrees — at all times.

That’s where the internet of things (IoT) comes in. By adding data from RFID-equipped temperature gauges — which are small and cheap enough to be attached to each box — the blockchain can track not only where the vaccines are, but also that they have not been spoiled by high temperatures. And, they can be tracked in real time.

Zeullig, which has a cold storage transport system call eZCooler that can be combined with its blockchain tracker, has combined the two.

No Empty Shelves

While vaccines and other medications are a matter of life and death, the same system can be — and has been — applied to milk and produce that needs to be kept cool to avoid spoilage. It works well enough that companies can spot trucks where the refrigeration system is failing while on the road, before the driver even knows.

And the IoT devices can measure other things like GPS location.

The same RFID trackers’ utility doesn’t end once the product has reached the end of the supply chain. Uploading IoT data to a blockchain can alert warehouse and retail store managers when supply of a product is running low. And using blockchain’s self-executing smart contracts can even be programmed to order more before it runs out without being told.

Read more: PYMNTS DeFi Series: What Is a Smart Contract?

“Supply chains must meet multiple objectives: a high level of customer fulfillment, profitability targets, and resilience to disruptions,” Vishal Gaur, Emerson Professor of Manufacturing Management at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business, wrote in the Harvard Business Review in December 2021.

Add in factors like provably sustainable sourcing and fair wage data, and “until recently the cost of achieving all these goals was exorbitant, forcing organizations to make tradeoffs,” Gaur said. “However, analytics combined with Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology are rapidly making these objectives attainable.”

Which is good, as laws in both the U.S. and European Union “will soon require companies to trace the movement of their products, keep records of that movement to show proof of identity, and measure the environmental impact of activities throughout the supply chain,” he added.

Walmart Canada combined blockchain and IoT technology to reduce billing disputes with third-party trucking logistics firms from 70% to less than 5%, Gaur noted.

Beyond Movement

There are plenty of other ways the blockchain-IoT partnership can be used.

Glasgow’s Scottish Universities Environment Research Centre (SUERC) tested 50 bottles of rare and expensive whisky in 2018, and found that 21 were fake or labeled as older than they were. Two years later, it teamed up with Everledger to create a blockchain system that attached tamper resistant NFC tags to whisky bottles at the distillery and uploaded the data onto a blockchain, providing authentication for stores and auction houses.

In Taiwan, energy distributor TaiPower attached blockchain-based, IoT-enabled solar power meters to its solar panel fields, allowing the company to avoid sending staff out during the COVID lockdown.