Blockchain Technology and Serialization – Interview with Tianna Umann, Microsoft

In a recent interview at the Adents Serialization Innovation Summit, Tianna Umann, Cross Domain & Blockchain Solution Architect, Microsoft, sat down with us to discuss Blockchain Technology for Serialization and the robust solutions that have been co-developed by Adents and Microsoft to comply with US and EU regulatory requirements.

Adents and Microsoft launched Adents NovaTrack last year, a unit-level product track & trace platform utilizing Blockchain and AI technologies offering end-to-end traceability and visibility throughout the entirety of the supply chain.

According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an estimated 10% of pharmaceutical products sold worldwide and 2.5% of global imports are counterfeit. Trust and transparency continue to be significant concerns for businesses, government agencies and consumers around the globe. Tighter control of supply chains is a crucial factor in tackling these issues.

Blockchain presents unprecedented opportunities to secure entire supply chains, yet comprehensive end-to-end security means more than documenting transactions on a shared ledger. Challenges include:

• In-depth understanding of cross-standard serialization protocols
• Ability to define data governance and security policies based on industry standards and business processes as stakeholders are reluctant to share business information and compliance issues impact their governance
• Enormous data volume (hundreds of billions of products circulating worldwide annually) requires powerful AI and BI solutions
• Syncing complex business processes to understand the supply chain, and adapting IT solutions to meet existing and future stakeholder requirements

Above all, Adents NovaTrack is a marriage of technologies: The solution utilizes Blockchain, A.I., IoT and serialization functionalities that, when combined, bring comprehensive visibility throughout product distribution chains & life cycles. The result is a solution highly mindful not only of performance and security but also governance and scalability. Adents NovaTrack’s foundation includes:

• A “Blockchain as a service” approach allowing each supply chain participant to either run blockchain nodes on premises or via the Cloud. In the vast majority of cases, a cloud-first blockchain strategy is preferable, as it simplifies technology life cycle management, security, scalability and resource allocations.
• Embedded security features – including consortium Blockchain mechanisms such as identity management, PKI and encryption – ensuring only trusted participants are members of the Blockchain.
• Artificial Intelligence via Microsoft Machine Learning and Business Intelligence Services gives the ability to collect and analyze data to transform massive amount of data into actionable business insight.

Watch the full interview with Tianna Umann