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Thursday, June 17, 2021

Autonomous Supply Chains run by Smart Contracts?

Fascinating thought.  How would the 'contracts' be written to adapt to the autonomous aspects of the system?

The Age of Autonomous Supply Chains  by Paul Brody,  in CoinDesk

Companies can replace top-down planning with self-organizing blockchain systems, says our columnist. Think of supply chains orchestrated by smart contracts.

We associate the concept of central planning with grim images of collapsing Soviet economies, but it turns out that central planning is also the main engine for how capitalist modern economies run – at least inside the enterprise, though with perhaps a slightly better track record.

It turns out, whether it’s at the national level or inside the enterprise, that people do not like being told what to do or being guided by central planning. Despite that, since the 1960s, companies have been trying to make computerized top-down planning and scheduling work so that they can operate their business networks more efficiently. 

These central planning systems are costly and complex, and with the rise of blockchain-based industrial operations, there is an opportunity to put many of them out to pasture. Just like the real world, blockchains are decentralized systems where individual actors participate alongside others, but there is no centralized coordinating entity. ... ' 

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