ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘blockchain’ CATEGORY

SigmaDots blockchain-based solution enables protection for IoT and IIoT systems.

 

 

SigmaDots, a cyber-security startup and subsidiary of Essence Group, has partnered with Telit, a global enabler of the Internet of Things (IoT), to expand IoT security and strengthen business continuity leveraging SigmaDots technology. Essence Group is a market leader in developing LTE-based connected devices and IoT platforms.

SigmaDots has developed the first embedded, blockchain-based cybersecurity solution for IoT and IIoT systems. Telit, recognizing the need for enhanced solutions, is working closely with SigmaDots to improve resilience to cyberattacks. The companies are collaborating on the use of blockchain technology for routers, control panels, IoT gateways, and a host of IoT devices, drastically reducing device vulnerability to cyberthreats.

“The ubiquity of IoT devices makes them attractive targets for cyber mischief,” said Alon Segal, SVP of Software & Services, Telit. “Our collaboration with SigmaDots adds another layer of security and communications resiliency using distributed technologies to offer advanced, secure infrastructure solutions for our customers.”

SigmaDots software-based solutions harness the power of serverless architecture, bringing blockchain-based cybersecurity to the IoT ecosystem. With a scalable, interoperable, and secure platform uniquely adapted to the limited resources of IoT, SigmaDots empowers connected ecosystems to accelerate the machine-to-machine economy.

“IoT is finally delivering on its promises of complete connectivity – wearables, mobile apps, home safety, smart meters and in industry – generally anywhere” said Itsik Harpaz, General Manager of SigmaDots. “However, this connectivity brings significant threats – an attack on a single device can spread throughout the entire network.”

IoT devices without strong cyber protection can easily become part of a botnet to carry out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks or fall prey to IoT-focused attacks like man-in-the-middle, data and identity theft, and device hijacking.

“SigmaDots technology was developed out of the need to strengthen the security of our IoT devices,” said Dr. Haim Amir, CEO and founder of Essence Group. “We’ve been creating innovative connected device solutions for more than 25 years, so we fully understand the challenges and the necessity of creating airtight cyber protection.”

 

Company announce blockchain-led service platform with warehouse features.

With this addition to its blockchain-based platform, Serve have created a new paradigm in smart logistics and complete customer satisfaction. Reducing the distance between the warehouse and end-user improves the order fulfillment experience for all participants by shortening delivery times and reducing costs.  Businesses can now expand their footprint without the added infrastructure. Integrating this technology into Serve’s award-winning platform furthers its goal of becoming a global engine for commerce and last-mile logistics.

 

"Our mobile warehousing system distinguishes Serve in the modern, on-demand delivery and logistics industries,” says Serve’s CEO Shahan Ohanessian. “With the increased efficiency and optimization this brings to our delivery processes, businesses will be able to provide big-box capabilities and order fulfillment services to customers everywhere.”

Serve announce the integration of its fingerprint recognition technology with its blockchain-based platform. 

Bringing forth a new paradigm in securing deliveries in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and other sensitive consumer goods where chain of custody and proof of delivery are paramount, this seemingly ubiquitous technology offers users an extra layer of security throughout the order fulfillment process without sacrificing efficiency. 

 

“Being involved in the logistics space for over 20 years, the current faults in last-mile logistics have become increasingly apparent,” says Serve’s CEO Shahan Ohanessian. “With the integration of fingerprint recognition technology, Serve increases the security of order fulfillment while also increasing positive business-to-consumer relationships.”

 

Combining fingerprint recognition technology with Serve’s innovative blockchain-based platform, which now includes facial recognition technology, every participant within the Serve ecosystem will experience more secure and positive transactions, from mom-and-pop shops to large businesses. Creating a solid foundation for a decentralized last-mile logistics, Serve promotes efficiency, transparency, and trust.

Serve has announced the addition of Las Vegas to its list of cities now offering Serve’s service platform based on blockchain technology.

Piloting its software, business processes and transaction protocols, Serve will bring residents, visitors, and businesses more options by increasing access to the products and services, the firms says.

"We are excited to pilot the Serve platform in Las Vegas, Nevada’s most populated city and globally renowned tourist destination,” said Serve’s CEO Shahan Ohanessian. “By showcasing the potential of our unique technology, which increases transparency and decentralizes the on-demand economy, Serve aims to empower users, service providers, and enterprises of all sizes to conduct business on one cohesive platform in a manner that benefits all participants.”

As a recent guest on the Field Service Podcast, Oneserve’s CEO Chris Proctor shared thoughts on innovation, servitization and the worrying discrepancy between new and retiring engineers. Field Service News Deputy Editor Mark Glover looks back on a conversation that asked uncomfortable yet insightful questions of the sector.

 

What is digital? “It’s about bringing people together in one global location; a world without boundaries; a world where ideas are born and developed; where people live, and most importantly; where people transact.”

These are the words on Chris Proctor’s Linkedin profile. If it is his mantra it’s a good one. It’s refreshing to get such a holistic view of digital. Do we label it a platform or technology? Who really knows? However it’s useful – and perhaps essential - to try and frame its creative potential and understand how it can seed ideas and drive innovation. 

I was fortunate enough to record a podcast with Proctor towards the end of 2018 and among other threads of conversation (including the definition of digital) I asked about the industry’s progression in adopting new technologies.  “I might be lambasted for saying this but I don’t think there has been much innovation,” he said, aware of the statement’s brevity. “It’s disappointing that the last real innovation in field service management was moving to the cloud and even then, I don’t think everyone is fully there yet.”

It’s a bold claim, yet one that has substance. The industry has been accused before of lagging when it comes to embracing disruptive, digital technology. In fact, writing for this magazine moreMomentun’s Jan Van Veen, suggested a knowledge gap around its definition was contributing to the malaise. “Too often, I see misconceptions about disruption and disruptive innovation and a lack of clarity on what needs to change and too slow a pace of change,” he wrote, “by consequence, manufacturers tend to make inadequate assessments and develop inadequate strategies, allowing leading competitors and new entrants into the industry to take the lead.” 

 

 

“I might be lambasted for saying this but I don’t think there has been much innovation...“

 

 

To halt this inadequacy, Proctor thinks a further disruptive approach is needed to jolt the sector from its lethargy, encased in an attitude he phrases as “okay is okay”. He uses the utility sector as to expand his point. “You only have to look back at the gas or water boards where there was very little competition with very little incentive to be a lot better and I think we’ve lived with that legacy for quite a long time. “Look at what’s happened in some of the other sectors and see how much things can be disrupted when someone comes in and says ‘We don’t believe ‘okay is okay’ and we’re going to offer a very different service proposition,’” he urged.  




To reach this level, servitization and the gig economy, he predicts, will have a fundamental impact on the way services are delivered. Most likely through a subscription-based model, complimented by disruptive innovations and delivered by freelancers who, in order to maintain their personal brand, deliver consistent service excellence. “I can see a world where most of your services are consumed on a subscription-type basis. You contact your service provider who then uses technology similar to programmatic advertising whereby contracts are tended and bid for and secured within seconds, all underpinned by blockchain. You then have the real emphasis of an individual providing a service on behalf of a company, then what you then see is that you don’t get the overheads that come with large contractors, but you do see service excellence from an individual who is trying to make a name for themselves and secure their own future,” Proctor said. 

This small-task employment model could be the remedy for the alarming disparity between new field technicians coming into the industry and those retiring, however despite the need for a swift solution Proctor feels the time frame for such a movement is ambiguous. “Whether it’s five years, whether it’s ten years, I think a move towards that model is irrefutable” he says, “I also think the timings are completely debatable.” 

I enjoyed the conversation, and I suggest you listen to the full podcast on our website. If the point of digital, as Proctor says, is to create a world where ideas are born and then developed then we need to hit reset, disrupt and collaborate. Perhaps then can innovation thrive.  
You can listen to the Field Service Podcast with OneServe's Chris Proctor here.

 

Blockchain and its potential has been mooted in field service circles for years. Is it time we stop thinking big and instead build smaller use-cases before we lose sight of what’s actually important, the end-user? Mark Glover, Field Service News’ Deputy Editor finds out more.

In 2008, a person (or a group of people) known as Satoshi Nakamoto conceptualised the first blockchain. A year later, this digitised digital ledger was a critical accessory to the group’s (or his) headline act, the now ubiquitous cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

The impact of this decentralised digital currency on financial markets and a curious, confused society has been fascinating to follow. That the persona of the inventor or the inventors remains unknown adds to the plot.

Yet, without blockchain, the currency wouldn’t function. This smart ledger, driven by a peer-to-peer network has the potential to stamp itself on industry and in particular field service. But can the sector adopt the technology in a way that will ultimately benefit the end-user?

Firstly though, and apologies to all those who have a handle on the technology, what is blockchain? Scouring the internet for a simple definition is tricky, eventually, the excellent forward-thinking mission.com offered this: “Blockchain is the technology that underpins digital currency (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and the like). The tech allows digital information to be distributed, but not copied. That means that each individual piece of data can only have one owner.”

 

"The tech allows digital information to be distributed, but not copied. That means that each individual piece of data can only have one owner..."

 

Straightforward enough. But let’s expand it to industry. How can it fit into the aerospace sector and specifically a plane engine? Parties involved include the airline, the engine manufacturer and the service company all of whom are squirting data into that asset’s blockchain.

The jet engine is a high-end valuable piece of equipment, the blockchain systems enable a single, irrefutable history of that asset. The linking of parties (blocks) removes the requirement for inter-party consultation before extracting required information meaning critical decisions can be made quicker and more effectively. It’s also secure and visible to everyone and accurate and trust, therefore, is enhanced around the chain. The benefits are tangible. So why aren’t all companies rushing to implement it?

“Like all emerging technologies there are only going to be one or two applications that are going to come up for this kind of thing in the very early days,” says Stephen Jeffs-Watts, Senior Advisor – Service Management at IFS. Stephen is an expert in blockchain, a keen enthusiast of its benefits but warns that fields service shouldn’t get too carried away just yet, particularly as sectors are only starting to dip their toes in the murky blockchain water.

 

"We have to try and bear in mind that it [blockchain] is also directly proportionate to the type of kit that’s been installed...“

 

A lot of the use cases that are coming up at the moment,” he tells me, “are in very high-value assets and very highly regulated supply chains; in aerospace, defence, nuclear and very-high-end medical applications,” he pauses. “There aren’t too many Phillips Medicals out there.”

In field service, blockchain technology can potentially trace parts, verify assets and look-up maintenance and operations history, but according to Stephen, it needs to bed-in with modern hardware before its benefits can be felt. “We have to try and bear in mind that it [blockchain] is also directly proportionate to the type of kit that’s been installed,” he warns, “Are you really going to use blockchain to authenticate the asset history or the maintenance and servicing history for a ten-year-old piece of equipment?” Another pause, “You’re not.”

Let’s go back to the jet engine blockchain analogy; the engine itself is a high-end piece of equipment.

The airlines and engine manufacturer, themselves are high-end companies:  BA, KLM, Lufthansa, Rolls Royce, GE, Northrup Grumann, for example. All are big companies keen to monetise blockchain, the only real way to do this is through data-ownership but in a high-asset blockchain, this isn’t always straightforward.

Who owns the data from a jet-engine? Is it the airlines?

The thrust from their plane goes through that engine and what about linking that to the pilot who’s flying that aircraft and jet engine through the air? That’s the airline’s data too. They also have a hand in the plane’s load: the number of passengers and baggage, fuel etc. That’s also data from the airline.

The engine itself? Rolls Royce might run it on a power-by-the-hour contract, so it’s their engine, so do they own the blockchain data? Like that other revolution IoT, blockchain becomes an issue of data ownership. What can be done to grease the chains to make the process run smoother?

“You’re going to have to get industries and supply chains to actually come together and solve the underlying data ownership issue,” Steve offers. “There is going to have to be some kind of consensus; an informal consensus through co-operation; the introduction of some kind of industry standard or ultimately an enforced consensus through legislative means,

Be it an Industry standard or a regulatory framework, large-scale blockchain implementation ultimately needs sectors to work together, to come together in agreement and as Steve explains, it also becomes an issue of trust. “Let’s say there are ten people involved in the supply chain: the operator, the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), there may be a service operator; they’re all contributing data to that chain.

“But does the end operator actually have enough trust in the OEM to question if they are going to use their data and benchmark it against its competitors”, he ponders.

Issues around data-ownership, trust and unfit equipment unable to handle what is essentially a large-scale, shared google document are indicators that large-scale field-service blockchain implementation isn’t as close as we might think. Perhaps we are setting our sights too high? Maybe the use-cases should be carried out on a much smaller scale?

After all, cryptocurrency, the original thread of blockchain was designed for electronic financial transactions, not necessarily jet engines. Stephen agrees, referencing a well-known tracking device, he suggests we should keep things simple. “We could use blockchain like a glorified RFID tag that authenticates, verifies and gives you a reference point,” he says. “I can look at the blockchain and I can see who made it, when it was made, how it was transported.

“Where they may be just a couple of parameters about its last usage, you can look at that by a component-by-component type level, specifically in those cases where that kind of information is critical, or the authenticity is critical.

 

"There’s got to be a realistic level of ambition and some specific use-cases that prove the technology and prove the value of the technology before there comes any mainstream adoption..“

 

There’s got to be a realistic level of ambition and some specific use-cases that prove the technology and prove the value of the technology before there comes any mainstream adoption,” Stephen urges.

My conversation with Steve has been fascinating and his contribution to this article I’m sincerely grateful for. The insight he offered - most of which I’m unable to fit into this wordcount – was invaluable, yet despite all its potential of blockchain Stephen left me with a thought that goes beyond the blockchain hype: “So what?”

So what if an asset is pumping with blockchain data? All the customer wants is the device to start working again so they can get on with their business.

“What value does that bring to me as a customer,” argues Steve. “unless I’m in a highly regulated environment. When do you start loading up past-maintenance history? Is it good? Is it worthwhile? Probably not. So what’s the use-case that going to give killer value?

Steve continues from the end user's perspective: “Great, you’ve got blockchain. What do I get from you having blockchain? What do I get from being able to prove every last working second of this particular piece of kit? Why should I care?”

It’s an excellent point that perhaps gets lost in this fourth industrial revolution we find ourselves in. Among AI, and IoT and machine learning and blockchain should we not just focus on the customer needs and their requirements? Or will we continue to pursue the hype?

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Citizens Reserve, the high tech startup led by several entrepreneurs and former Deloitte blockchain executives, has unveiled SUKU, an industry agnostic supply chain solution aimed at tackling the issues of transparency, efficiency, and product visibility in legacy systems.

A blockchain-based platform, SUKU expects to open new markets, improve operations and reduce the cost of running supply chains. The SUKU ecosystem intends to provide key advantages to trading partners such as access to real-time, transparent data around the precise location of goods, the privacy of partners, a bid and order marketplace, auditability of activities and the automation of contractual agreements.

Eric Piscini, Citizens Reserve CEO, said, “The current supply chain environment is complex and difficult to navigate. Almost all enterprises require a supply chain to some extent, but the technology supporting them remains expensive, inefficient and fragmented. With SUKU, we’re planning to build the decentralized supply chain as-a-service platform that can span across industries, enabling our trading partners to interact in a way that’s been all but impossible up until now.”

 

"With today’s businesses often working with myriad partners on a global scale, the challenges presented by supply chain management are increasingly vast..."

 

With today’s businesses often working with myriad partners on a global scale, the challenges presented by supply chain management are increasingly vast. Whether locating a Chinese supplier or finding a carrier to haul products from LA to Toronto, these challenges are amplified by the lack of one global governing body or a set of standards to ensure end-to-end visibility.

Eric Piscini said, “Recent contentious incidents such as the Chinese pharmaceutical scandals have showcased the need for one layer of connection for trading partners to communicate and transact. From hardware to energy, all industries utilizing a supply chain take risks working with untrusted partners. The true value of a decentralized ecosystem comes in its nature of being trustless and having no single point of failure.”

SUKU’s unique ‘supply chain-as-a-service’ concept expects to eradicate the three primary obstacles in supply-chain by providing visibility of products, access to capital and innovation, and engagement between stakeholders. In order to bring greater visibility to the supply chain, SUKU aims to display the precise location and status of goods in real-time, which is essential in ensuring that all parties can act proactively, instead of reactively when an issue arises.

The platform anticipates to provide companies with access to new marketplaces and technologies, and better connect suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.

Designed to be industry-agnostic, from farming to pharmaceuticals, to electrical goods, the SUKU platform anticipates the use of two blockchains, Ethereum and Quorum, to maximize the benefits of both networks. The public Ethereum blockchain used extensively for smart contract deployments, is expected to handle supply chain payments.

The permissioned Quorum blockchain aims to facilitate transactions such as bids and offers, where confidentiality is critical. SUKU’s native token is necessary to incentivize and reward partners of the platform.

The platform’s built-in transparency and auditability also project to empower more socially responsible practices amongst trading partners by providing greater awareness about the provenance and origin of goods, as well as the values of the organizations they work with.

 

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Approximately one in three companies (32 per cent) believe the business use of artificial intelligence will be commonplace within the next decade, new research from TomTom Telematics has revealed.

The study found that 22 per cent believe virtual reality will be in common usage, while around one in five anticipates the prevalence of in-vehicle working due to the development of autonomous vehicles.

However, almost a third (32 per cent) fear they may struggle to keep pace with the rate of technological change. Furthermore, one in two (49 per cent) believe those that fail to embrace digitalised processes and the Internet of Things are at greater risk of going out of business.

“Complacency can sound the death knell for businesses,” said Beverley Wise, director UK & Ireland at TomTom Telematics.

“Companies should be mindful of the pace of change and keep a close eye on the solutions and processes that will help ensure a competitive future – from smart mobility and connected tech to advanced manufacturing and design systems. Many of today’s new emerging technologies will disrupt and revolutionise commerce, and in the process become the standard for tomorrow.”

Almost half of companies (46 per cent) believe remote working has or will become, the norm within the next 10 years. Remote working is currently proving more prevalent among larger companies (58 per cent) than their SMEs counterparts (37 per cent).

“The onus is on businesses, both large and small, to adapt to this new era of hypermobility and connected working that is being ushered in by advancements in areas ranging from telematics and the connected car to iPaaS and blockchain solutions,” added Wise.

“Such connected technologies and unified communication systems are unshackling workers from traditional working patterns - an empowering development that is set to significantly impact productivity and business efficiency.”

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Blockchain, the technology developed to enable the crypto-currency Bitcoin has become the latest big buzz phrase technology across industries worldwide, but is it just hyperbole or can it be an important factor in the future of field service?

Business across the world are turning their attention to BlockChain right now and in the majority of cases, the main focus of this attention is centred around Bitcoin, the first globally recognized digital (crypto) currency that has hit the headlines largely for huge spikes and dips in its value across the last 12 months.

However, whilst Crypto-Currency is the most widely understood application of Blockchain technology, there may be a number of other applications which could be far more important to how the field service sector operates.

Blockchain 101

So for the uninitiated lets first get our heads around exactly what BlockChain is...

To begin a blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using encrypted codes. Essentially, each block will typically contain a cryptographic hash of the previous block, alongside a time stamp and the transaction data.

Perhaps the most critical point to comprehend about blockchain is that by design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the dataPerhaps the most critical point to comprehend about blockchain is that by design, a blockchain is inherently resistant to modification of the data. The technical language is that it is “an open, distributed ledger that can record transactions between two parties efficiently and in a verifiable and permanent way”.

When used as a distributed ledger, a blockchain is generally managed by a peer-to-peer network which adheres to the same protocols for validating new blocks collectively. What this means is that in practice, once the data is within in any given block it can not be altered retroactively without the alteration of all subsequent blocks. The particularly clever part here is that as each peer within the chain is working as part of the collective, such a change requires the collusion of a majority from the network - this makes pulling a fast one anywhere along the line pretty much near impossible.

Thus blockchains are inherently secure by design.

For the more technically minded amongst us, one could suggest quite rightly that the establishment of blockchain has meant that decentralized consensus has become realized, with blockchain ‘exemplifying a distributed computing system with high Byzantine fault tolerance’

For those of us who are perhaps more interested in the outcomes, however, essentially what we need to know is that due to the way they have been designed they are highly suitable for the recording of information that needs watertight security - such as medical records and of course financial transactions - which is where it all began.

Whilst Blockchain is rapidly gaining attention, it is the crypto-currency that it was created for use with, Bitcoins, even more widely recognized within the mainstream.

Blockchain was invented by wonderfully mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2008 as Bitcoin’s public transaction ledger.

Indeed it was the invention of the blockchain that allowed bitcoin to become the first digital currency to solve what is known as the ‘double spending problem’, without the need of a trusted authority or central server - essentially making crypto-currency viable.

So it’s just a new way of taking payment?

Well no, as we alluded to at the top there could be a lot more to how Blockchain plays a role in field service which we’ll go into shortly - but whilst we are at it there is certainly a case for adding crypto-currencies to the list of how your organisation receives payment for the services delivered - especially if you are serving the consumer directly.

Certainly whilst crypto-currency is by no means a mainstream payment method as yet, an increasing number of businesses are starting to accept it and with a lower barrier to entry than accepting plastic, any business in any industry has the ability to adopt crypto-currencies.

In Japan alone, an estimated 260,000 businesses were reported to offer the cryptocurrency as a payment channel in 2017.In Japan alone, an estimated 260,000 businesses were reported to offer the cryptocurrency as a payment channel in 2017.

But what are the benefits of accepting cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin for a business?

There are plenty of positives in doing so but some key reasons cited in an article on business.com include:

• Eliminate chargeback fraud: A Bitcoin transaction is immutable. Once a client has paid for a product or service, the money is in your account. Unlike credit card payments, charges cannot be reversed.
• Immediate availability: There is no third party-dependent waiting period the way there is with bank-owned payments.Once payment is successful, the transaction amount is in your wallet and accessible immediately.You can convert Bitcoin into your local currency fiat at the end of each transaction, at the end of each working day or according to a custom set schedule.
• Lower transaction costs: Credit card payments usually end up costing you a 2 to 4 percent fee.With Bitcoin, this amount is a low flat fee, not a percentage of the transaction.
• Attract new customers: As Bitcoin rises in popularity, more users seek out participating businesses. This can mean exposure to a clientele you didn’t have before.
• Garner publicity: Bitcoin makes the news in a way fiat currency can’t. Local, national and even international news outlets are reporting on businesses taking Bitcoin payments, giving you an opportunity for free publicity.

Fixing the holes in the Internet of Things

However, as mentioned above, within the field service sector Blockchain has a huge amount more potential than just facilitating an additional means of receiving payment.

Firstly, there is its potential application within the Internet of Things - which is set to become the fundamental backbone of service delivery in the future - although widespread mass adoption is still arguably held back due to security concerns, a very real example of which being realized back in October 2016 when an unprecedented distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack involving an estimated 100,000 compromised devices in the Mirai malware botnet nearly brought the Internet to its knees in 2016 provided a clear indicator of the precarious state of IoT security.

The root of such weaknesses lies essentially within the security architecture of the IoT itself.

IoT architecture relies upon a distributed client-server model which uses a central authority to manage both the IoT devices as well as the data generated across an IoT network.

For IoT data to be trusted, all trust requests are aggregated into a single location which creates a sole point of security intelligence that can compromise IoT security. This is how Mirai-style botnet attacks can succeed.

Basically, during such an attack, IoT devices are unable to adapt their behaviour because they are not considered “smart” enough to make security decisions without the help of the central authority.

In an interview with computerweekly.com Joseph Pindar, Director for Strategy in the CTO office at Gemalto, and co-founder of the Trusted IoT Alliance, a non-profit group that advocates the use of blockchain to secure IoT ecosystem outlined why he believes Blockchain could hold the answer to true IoT security.

Pindar explained how blockchain removes the single point of decision-making that leads to failure, by enabling device networks to protect themselves in other ways, such as allowing devices to form group consensus about what is normal within a given network, and to quarantine any nodes that behave unusually.

Blockchain can play a crucial role in building trust in IoT dataIn addition to this blockchain can play a crucial role in building trust in IoT data by enabling what Pindar called the five digital security primitives: availability, auditability, accountability, integrity and confidentiality.

In blockchain, data is automatically stored in many locations and is always accessible to users.

For auditability and accountability, a private, permission-based blockchain is used – where all users are authorized to access the network – and because all data stored on the blockchain is signed, each device is accountable for its actions.

With regards to integrity, blockchain is as we’ve outlined above a public ledger of data entries.

With every entry, deletion or correction of data being confirmed across the network across a fully verifiable complete chain of events.

Further to this, there is also another perhaps less obvious but equally important benefit of utilizing Blockchain within IoT systems which Pinder raises.

There is a fairly widespread mindset amongst IT executive management regarding securing the industrial Internet which is that once a sensor, device or controller has been deployed and is working, it cannot be touched.

“Even if there is a known security vulnerability, it is not worth fixing it, because there is a chance that the security patch would cause problems elsewhere in the system that no one knows how to fix,” explained Pindar when speaking to Computer Weekly’s Aaron Tan “But as cloud computing has demonstrated, there are continual failures of devices and systems when operating at very large scale.”

“Simply put, it is not possible to manage large-scale systems that are fragile and not resilient to failure – as is the case with many current industrial IoT and OT systems.”

And the solution to this which Pindar recommends is to allow continuous deployment of software updates, alongside blockchain technology after devices have been deployed, with little or no downtime through an over-the-air update system - something he believes delivers both cost and operational efficiency when delivering over-the-air updates and patching to IoT devices and sensors.

With the IoT becoming more and more prevalent amongst field service organizations, the suggestions Pindar makes regarding the application of Blockchain in such systems should indeed be an important consideration for field service organisations as they establish their IoT processes.

The final piece of the 3D printing puzzle?

However, there could be yet another important place for blockchain within the field service sector, it could just be the missing piece of the puzzle in resolving one of the biggest challenges within our sector, namely managing the spare parts supply chain.

3D printing has for a long time been touted as a potential solution to getting parts needed to engineers as soon as possible, but one potential hurdle has always been how organisations control the licensing of the spare parts to ensure that firstly if the customer has 3D printing capability on-site - which has been one suggested use case, how can the provider ensure they don’t simply print off as many parts as needed once they have initially received the schematics file.

Similarly, by sending the parts data across in a digital file, the potential for such a file to make its way into the hands of unscrupulous third parties happy to make unauthorized parts for sale elsewhere is also a cause for concern for many organizations. Frankly, the risk to their IP and the significant loss of revenue this could lead has meant that many OEMs still view 3D printing with a distinct lack of trust.

However, could Blockchain perhaps hold the solution to such fears?

This certainly seems to be the thinking behind one Italian startup called 3D-TOKEN, which aims to integrate Blockchain and 3D printing technologies, in order to create a “unique, decentralized, global Just-In-Time Factory 4.0 for this century’s digital revolution.”

If successful it could certainly set a precedent for how Blockchain and 3D printing could work in harmonyAside from cramming as many manufacturing buzz phrases into their mission statement as possible, it seems it is certainly a concept that could have a potentially huge impact on service organizations within OEMs.

The goal for 3DToken is to connect thousands of 3D printers in a network hub based in Blockchain. In short, the plan is to create a Blockchain-managed network hub of desktop 3D printers.

The project will be used to bring just-in-time small-to-medium scale digital manufacturing to a new level.

Coin Telegraph described the startup as being capable of “accelerating the 3D printing market to its full potential” by changing up industry norms on product cost and time to market.

Whilst this project is still very much in its infancy, they have made impressive progress to date and although the focus on desktop 3D printers would suggest a consumer-centric approach initially as opposed to something suited for industry, if successful it could certainly set a precedent for how Blockchain and 3D printing could work in harmony, and the concept should at the very least give many OEMs food for thought as to how they could harness the potential of 3D printing. Especially as a means of bypassing much of the often highly complex service supply chain.

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