Tech giant IBM has announced collaboration with global leader in transport and logistics Maersk Group, in a move to utilize the blockchain technology to manage transactions among network of shippers, freight forwarders, ocean carriers, ports and customs authorities.

The blockchain solution that helps transforming global, cross-border supply chain is built by the partnering companies and is based on the Hyperledger Fabric. IBM and Maersk will be working with a network of shippers, freight forwarders, ocean carriers, ports and customs authorities in order to build the new global trade digitization solution that is expected to start its production later in 2017.

“As a global integrator of container logistics with the ambition to digitize global trade, we are excited about this cooperation and its potential to bring substantial efficiency and productivity gains to global supply chains, while decreasing fraud and increasing security," Ibrahim Gokcen, chief digital officer, Maersk, stated. “The projects we are doing with IBM aim at exploring a disruptive technology such as blockchain to solve real customer problems and create new innovative business models for the entire industry. We expect the solutions we are working on will not only reduce the cost of goods for consumers, but also make global trade more accessible to a much larger number of players from both emerging and developed countries.”

The blockchain solution will help managing and tracking the paper trail of millions of shipping containers by digitizing the supply chain process from end-to-end to increase transparency and highly secure sharing of information among the partners of trading.

The solution is crafted to help to reduce fraud and errors, reduce the time products spend in the transit and shipping process, improve inventory management and as a result, reduce waste and cost. With the help of digital infrastructure or data pipeline that connects participants in a supply chain ecosystem, the blockchain solution enables real-time exchange of original supply chain events and documents.

“We believe that this new supply chain solution will be a transformative technology with the potential to completely disrupt and change the way global trade is done. Working closely with Maersk for years, we've long understood the challenges facing the supply chain and logistics industry and quickly recognized the opportunity for blockchain to potentially provide massive savings when used broadly across the ocean shipping industry ecosystem. Bringing together our collective expertise, we created a new model the industry will be able to use to help improve the transparency and efficiency of delivering goods around the globe,” Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, Industry Platforms at IBM said.