Still bamboozled by Blockchain and what it means for manufacturing? Don't be says Fujitsu's Graeme Wright. We interviewed him ahead of his presentation at The Engineer Conference, which takes place 5-7 June as part of Subcon.
1.
Isn't Blockchain just a fad?
Put simply – No. Blockchain is all too
often confused with crypto-currencies; they just are one solution built on the
technology. Blockchain offers a fundamentally new approach to sharing
information between people and organisations – one that is built on trust and
by sharing the ledger (list of records) enforces an immutable statement of
truth that can be therefore be used to ensure security. On top of
that, with the ideas of smart contracts allows machine to machine transaction
(contracts) to be executed automatically.
2.
How can Blockchain be used in
manufacturing?
There are so many ways – but for just one example -
think of the costs involved in managing the supply chain and ensuring
provenance – Blockchains with smart contracts can automate these processes,
reduce the cost to marginal levels and ensure that a company’s resources are
focused on the value-added tasks so increasing productivity at lower cost.
3.
What are the benefits?
The benefits will depend on the exact use case as
per the one described above. However, the key benefits of
Blockchains can probably be summarised ultimately as reductions in cost,
increased provenance across complex supply chains, and increased security
especially for connected products,
4.
What are the risks for people who
ignore it?
Without being flippant – it would be not to have
the benefits mentioned – but what that means is not having full traceability
and provenance – which may lead to inferior products. E.g. imagine if a
supplier of components used NFC or RFID tags that were registered in a
Blockchain on each component. A business would know that every component
was genuine and the trust would be part of the shared ledger so fake products
could not be added to the ledger. If a product recall was needed or a
customer needed a replacement then this could be done simply and at low cost
whilst also ensuring consumer continued to get the product quality they bought.
The spare/replacement parts market is often very large and ensuring consumers
get the right replacement parts that keep warranties valid is a massive
challenge. I also believe this could be used to overcome
certain tax – import/export issues.
5.
How important is it for
engineering/manufacturing to have a diverse workforce and what can
Industry/Government do to help?
There are so many facets to that question – I think
from a socio-political perspective it is very important – however, I also think
that from an innovation perspective it is very important. The last
thing business need is everyone having the same type of background, gender,
cultural, etc. as this limits the ability to new ideas. This is
well documented as a way in which good businesses fail. How can
Industry/Government help? - Keep pushing the diversity and inclusion
agenda – but be careful not to discriminate against those to have experience as
well. Whilst we all know that the next generation bring great
insight by challenging the status quo and asking the question ‘why wouldn’t we
do it this way?’ or something similar; whilst not accepting answer ‘we have
always done it this way’. However, experience has a lot of value as
well – mistake we have all made are lessons we can all learn from.
The point here is to ensure people are treated equally – but putting hard
metrics that must be met out of context can be less than optimal if not
dangerous.
6.
What would you put in Engineering
Room 101?
A difficult one. I think
connector leads, particularly HiFi/TV leads. They just create a
mess of wires, you never have the right ones or the right length and working
out what goes where can be a challenge for many. I think with the
wireless technologies we have today; it is the start of the end for wired connectors
and not before time.
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