Air France to use the blockchain for replacement parts shipping

With the recent news about goods shipping corporations actively experimenting with the blockchain, it was only a matter of time before somebody thought about applying it for more narrow sphere. The benefits of distributed ledger in aviation maintenance are quite obvious: the management of replacement parts for planes will bring benefits similar to the pros of the blockchain-based food supply system IBM is currently developing.

 

This means that after implementation, Air France will be able to swiftly determine what needs to be repaired, where to get the required replacement parts and who’s to blame if the parts are faulty. As James Kornberg, director of innovation of the Air France KLM business unit, puts it: “The four features of blockchain are resilience, traceability, integrity and disintermediation are well suited to the aviation supply chain.” According to reports from the team, the tracking of replacement parts has improved greatly when this technology was enabled during experimentation.

 

The DLT can also be used for the military of the developed countries for the same purposes, by the way. Logistics and shipment tracking of repair parts (and weapons) is one of the oldest military problems, and recently Pentagon has decided to research the usefulness of the blockchain. This leads to believe that in a few years, armies of the world will switch to the blockchain as one of the main shipment tracking tools. The rival companies of Air France, of course, are now forced to evolve as well.