Insolar Inc., an enterprise-grade distributed ledger blockchain platform producer, today announced it has been accepted into the standards body Blockchain in Transport Alliance, which aims to drive the adoption of the technology in logistics and supply chains for freight and shipping.

The Blockchain in Transport Alliance already boasts a number of big companies in the transport industry, including Daimler AG, FedEx Corp., United Parcel Service Inc. and Panalpina Group. The alliance also includes technology partners who supply blockchain services such as Microsoft Corp., SAP SE and Google LLC.

Insolar builds public and private blockchain solutions for business using its own platform. The company supplies its platform to a broadening number of industries including automotive, retail goods, utilities and supply chains in transportation, shipping and freight.

As a result, Insolar Chief Executive Officer Andrey Zhulin said, the company could bring a lot to the industry using its experience with logistics and supply chains for setting standards. “At Insolar, we believe we can make a valuable contribution, not only in terms of the technology that we are developing, but with the vision that we have for the blockchain arena as a whole,” said Zhulin.

BiTA is working to create standards with the intention of designing a common framework for industry-wide adoption of blockchain technology to make work more efficient. Part of that efficiency is making sure that the separate parts of these industries can interoperate with one another with as little friction as possible.

Supply chains use blockchain technology because it provides a tamperproof, distributed database of transactions that are recorded at the moment anything trackable happens. That trackable event can be anything from a raw material being packed into a bag, that material being processed at a plant, that processed material being shipped to a forge, etc.

Every time something happens in a supply chain, that event can be recorded and tracked as a series of transactions that can be historically followed back from a finished and packaged product through its entire life-cycle.

This capability would give highly trustworthy, extreme transparency into the entire life of a product from when its components get forged to when it gets placed on a shelf. This capability has been used to increase supply chain efficiency, discover slowdowns in processing and shipping and assure quality. The ability to trust that records have not been changed after the fact also means that blockchains can be used for audits by regulatory organizations and to show compliance with laws.

By putting together so many shipping and transport industry leaders with blockchain technology providers, BiTA hopes to provide the biggest possible network of supply chain use cases with technology innovators. “The deep blockchain expertise, in addition to specific supply chain use cases for distributed ledger tech that Insolar brings to the table, will advance BiTA’s mission of creating solid standards and further blockchain adoption throughout the transportation and logistics industries,” said BiTA President Chris Burruss.

Since its founding in 2017, BiTA has expanded into become one of the largest commercial blockchain alliances in the world. It now supports more than 500 members in 25 countries that collectively generate more than $1 trillion in revenue a year. The addition of Insolar to BiTA will serve to grow the alliance’s influence across the transport and supply chain technology industries.

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