LogisticsX is a decentralized, distributed and collaborative last mile logistics platform. It provides an ecosystem and workflow for a collaborative last mile logistics. LogisticsX empowers public and freelancers to contribute to the last mile logistics, while helping third parties logistics provider to handle parcel tracking, and so on. Recipients will enjoy a quick, hassle-free package tracking and effective delivery.
This article will discuss how LogisticsX works, why it is important and presents challenges & suggestions for the projects. Enjoy your read!
Last Mile Logistic & Blockchain
Last mile logistics is a business that is predicted to grow bigger in the following years. Last mile logistics is the business of delivering parcels or package from the warehouse to the recipients. It is the last process in the whole logistics industry. If you ever buy something online, then the last delivery process to your house is the process of last mile logistics. Unlike a supply chain or other bigger logistics, last mile logistics is smaller & specific.
E-commerce transaction is one of the reasons that makes last mile logistics have a bright future. However, the current last mile logistics status quo has at least three problems that need to be solved: high missing parcel delivery rate, bad treatment for the ad-hoc runner, and low efficiency in the delivery process. Solving those problems would means a greater growth, robust and dependable last mile logistics ecosystem.
Several solutions have been proposed in order to fix the problems. Blockchain, one of the newest technological breakthrough in this century has been researched, developed and tested on many logistics ecosystem. However, there is yet a specific application of blockchain in the last mile logistics.
LogisticX will use blockchain or distributed ledger technology in order to solve those problems. It will use blockchain as a way to store and record required data, track package, settle a dispute, enforce smart contracts, pay participants and so on. In its simplest sense, blockchain is the backbone for the entire process of delivery, payment, records, and tracking of parcels.
The New Ecosystems for Last Mile Logistics
LogisticsX provides a new ecosystem for last-mile logistics business. It changes the old hub and spoke model into a new, collaborative, sharing the economy-like delivery ecosystem. In its simplest sense, this new ecosystem adds new distributed 'parcel warehouse' and increase the number of 'runner' while at the same time providing them with adequate and better incentive to work. Combined with the blockchain, this new ecosystem provides a new workflow for the last mile logistics.
LogisticsX itself is not a logistics company, they act more like the ecosystem or protocol maintainer. Third-party logistics provider will be the one who conducts the business of receiving a delivery request, send them to the parcel warehouse and runner will continue the delivery process. Third-party logistics provider will then benefits from the streamlined process of package documentation, lower delivery cost and more. You can imagine LogisticsX as the Ethereum blockchain for Ethereum dApps. It provides the ecosystems and protocol for dApps.
In the LogisticsX ecosystem, there is two new stakeholder that will help to make the delivery process more effective & efficient. They are the parker provider and runner. Parker provider is a third party who provides a warehouse for package across the city. It acts as an extra place to store the package in order to remove the bottleneck when the package got centralized on a single warehouse. This will decrease cost and time for third-party logistics provider because they can simply send a package to the parker point and runner will deliver it later.
The runner will be the person who sends the package from parker point to the recipient warehouse. They can consist from anyone, whether they have a full-time job or not, as long as they can spend the time to deliver the package. The runner will get rewards in forms of LogisticsX tokens and more. Doing this will encourage people who have spare time to contribute and earn for themselves, therefore increase the number of package delivery per days.
This new ecosystem will be the core difference between traditional last mile logistics platform and the modern one. Blockchain, sharing economy principle and collaborative work should re-shape the future of last mile logistics through LogisticsX.
Challenges & Suggestions
Adoption by Provider
One of the key challenges faced by LogisticsX is adoption by third-party logistics provider. It is useless for the ecosystems if there's no one who uses it. However, since the beginning, there is already several notable last mile logistics provider that has established a partnership with the team. This is a good start, but migrating from old systems to a new one might take a while.
Other third-party logistics might think how will they handle the migration, what kind of benefits if they use the platform and so on. Moving to new ecosystems can equal to disbanding some division and therefore force an early retirement for their workers. LogisticsX might be able to help them by pre-registering runners place for those workers. But, they must think it wisely, and it is not possible to speed up the process to the extreme. Because of this, adoption at an early stage might be very difficult, because there are a lot of issues including tech migration, education about the new ecosystems, new worker roles and so on.
Adoption by Runner
In order for the ecosystem to work, the runner is also an important actor. Encouraging people to join the ecosystem as a runner might be a difficult task because there are other services who provide the same opportunity. This sharing economy delivery business, however, does not use blockchain and other technology used by LogisticsX.
The key to successful adoption by a runner is when a runner or potential runner think joining LogisticsX ecosystem is more profitable. The team or this project, in general, must show what benefits for runners in the ecosystem, for example, they can earn more, it's easier to do, the platform is more transparent, and other things that are not available in the old last mile logistics systems.
In addition to that, the team or the project, in general, can focus on encouraging millennials to join the ecosystems as they know more about the blockchain tech and generally more enthusiastic on this topic. Most of them are still young, in school or college so that they can have a lot of time doing part-time works by doing this runner job.
Privacy risk
Blockchain might be a great solution to ensure there is no single point of failure and decrease the risk of data manipulation. However, by nature, everybody can use block explorer to analyze people behavior using transactions. In this case, using blockchain transactions data to know what kind of things they buy, where are their home and so on. Malicious actors can use these kinds of data to analyze potential targets for a scam. If there's no protection again this, user privacy and security could be at risk.
One solution to mitigate this risk is to introduce an encryption mechanism for each transaction to happens. The only people who can decrypt the metadata contained in the transactions should be the recipient, logistics provider, runner, and other important parties. In its simplest sense, it should protect outsiders to track transactions details just by looking at block explorer. If it is required, everyone could have new metadata tag for every transaction that they do.
Conclusion
LogisticsX is a new ecosystem aimed to solve the problems in the existing last-mile logistics delivery system. With the power of blockchain, sharing economy and smart contracts, it decreases the cost, increases the profits, empowers participants of the ecosystems. LogisticsX might be a good solution that is worth to try, as long as the product keeps getting better.
If you want to read further, you can visit these links below:
LogisticsX Website: https://www.logisticsx.io/
LogisticsX Whitepaper: LogisticsX Whitepaper
The author of this article write this article for potential rewards from LogisticsX bounty program. The name of the author is joniboini, my ETH address is: 0x98431802e341318d06763d2c4be5bbd9eeaf1ebf. Readers are encouraged to read about LogisticsX from the original source.