CALGARY — Canadian Pacific has joined the Blockchain in Transportation Alliance, which seeks to establish blockchain standards for interoperability in the global supply chain.
Blockchain uses cryptography to create secure movement of shipping messages, documents and other data, and to ensure transactions are secure, authenticated, and verifiable.
“We are excited to be on this journey,” CP Vice President ,Information Services and Chief Information Officer Mike Redeker said in a press release. “As part of BiTA, we look forward to creating opportunities and innovative solutions that benefit our customers and the broader supply chain. Joining the alliance is part of CP’s continued focus on developing and supporting technology throughout the supply chain.”
The alliance now includes almost 500 members from transportation, freight, logistics and related industries.
BNSF Railway was the first Class I railroad to join the alliance, in 2018. [See “BNSF Railway officials say they’ll join blockchain alliance to revolutionize freight,” Trains News Wire, Feb. 5, 2018.]
Blockchain is the latest fad in management. Unfortunately, the real problem with management is getting the correct data input to the system. Blockchain doesn’t solve the problem of “garbage in, garbage out”. With so many different data systems connected in many ways, the railroads will soon discover that exchanging error filled data is vain.
Once the Internet is full of blockchain servers exchanging files with each other, this too will pass.