A Blockchain Based Freight Management Solution

Abstract

Freight Management System streamlines shipping procedure. It is a sub-process of supply-chain realm which focuses on transportation and logistics solution. Freight Management System allows its participants to use technology to automate shipping process. Thus, saving time and cost for shipments. Since all shipments are not similar in nature. Some are time sensitive, whereas others are temperature sensitive. Thus, they require different freight services which can handle them with extreme care. For this reason, businesses do not use same carrier for different shipments. It is very common to observe different logistics services dealing with different shipments. As a result, freight tracking process becomes extremely scattered and challenging. Depending on goods and routes they cover, a heap of paperwork is required which include certification of compliance, invoices, clearance permits, dispatch notes etc. Which means integrity needs to be preserved not only for goods, but also for the paperwork. A wrong or missing paper from its pile create many troubles in logistics, such as inconveniently long delays, misplaced consignments etc. It is very clear paperwork is of utmost importance, but the challenge is how to ensure providing correct details about freight, its sender and receiver without needing to process paper-trail. One way to address problems in freight management system is to expose system to the latest technologies. One of those technologies is blockchain which allows to secure data in an immutable fashion. This might prove to be a good architecture to address traceability issues in freight management system, making it fully automated and digital. Thesis focuses on researching over issues involved in Freight Management Systems and finding out whether blockchain can address them. Hence, we begin with baselining our hypothesis blockchain architectures seem to be a good match for Freight Management Systems. We gleaned major requirements that are necessary for Freight Management System. Later, we made an extensive literature review to pick one out of many existing blockchain frameworks which suffice to fulfill if not all, majority of those listed requirements. In the end, we validated our proposed solution to find out extent to which it can fulfill listed requirements. From its validation, we were able to reach out to some conclusions. The fact that our design architecture proved to meet majority of requirements for Freight Management System, but a few othersremain unaddressed. Our aim wasto explicitly define achievable and unachievable criteria through our proposed solution and to show potential of blockchain in freight management realm. We hope our contribution can pave way for future research to integrate blockchain in freight management systems.