This fireside chat recap is from Day 4 of FreightWaves’ Global Supply Chain Week. Day 4 focuses on automotive.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Applying blockchain to tire distribution
DETAILS: Going beyond buzzwords, Rak-Joon Choi, an American Tire Distributors vice president, talks with FreightWaves’ Clay Katzman about how blockchain technology can bring more efficiency and transparency to supply chains through data sharing.
SPEAKER: Choi of American Tire Distributors
BIO: Choi is the vice president for blockchain and supply chain digitization at American Tire Distributors and a former IBM executive.
KEY QUOTES FROM CHOI:
“Tires are probably not the sexiest product out there compared to your iPhone. … It’s not easy to distribute heavy tires. Those tires are big, clunky products that get stacked up into trucks. Delivering those in the most optimal way takes another cut of analytical prowess.”
“There’s a hypothesis that blockchain will help transform the supply chain by building a common data platform, helping transform some of the inefficient processes, potentially automate them and then drive more value for the participants.”
“If there’s a way to do business better by sharing certain data in our ecosystem, to make things a little bit more clear, a little bit more automated and more valuable, there’s a huge potential to bring more efficiency to the market and create new business models.”