Ruff Enterprise Blockchain Application Case: Automated Transaction Settlement in the M2M Chain of the Tank Industry
As a reliable database technology solution through decentralization and distributed storage, blockchain technology has been highly praised, and its application scenarios include finance, manufacturing, Internet of Things, insurance, logistics and other fields. Many traditional companies are also expecting blockchain technology to bring more innovation to existing businesses.
This article will introduce Ruff’s latest enterprise blockchain application case: the automatic transaction settlement solution on the M2M chain in the tank industry, which will tell you how traditional enterprises apply blockchain technology to actual business scenarios, thus achieving different business economic models, and creating new business models and asset securitization values.
Tank industry background and pain point analysis
As a sub-sector of the industrial sector, the tank industry has always been an artificial business scenario with relatively backward technology use, namely the supply of industrial raw materials for the traditional supply and marketing model.
A tank supplier usually needs to supply industrial raw materials to hundreds of corporate customers. The timeliness of customer procurement needs, the inconsistency in order purchase volume and cycle, and the difficulty in returning accounts are often caused, resulting in multiple bad debts, which seriously affects supply. Business interests and production efficiency.
For the supplier, if the customer’s oil consumption cannot be obtained in real time, it is difficult to carry out proper stocking. Only the company’s own evaluation and past order history can be used to judge the customer’s order purchase quantity; secondly, most customers have the problem of default in the accounting period, at the end of the year, most of the customers began to settle accounts, but each year, some customers have defaulted on the account period, becoming a corporate financial bad debt.
Therefore, from the perspective of the supplier, the transformation needs for the business are very clear:
1) For the customer’s tank level data, the update can be obtained in real time, so that the supplier can prepare in advance;
2) In the order procurement process, according to the liquid level consumption of the customer’s tank truck, the order purchase and execution will be automatically carried out to reduce the human participation;
3) In the settlement of the order purchase transaction, automatic transaction settlement can be realized to avoid the problem of default and bad debts.
Ruff blockchain solution design
In response to the needs of supplier customers, the Ruff M2M chain automatic transaction settlement solution is to make the customer and supplier’s tank equipment Internet of things, real-time monitoring of the remaining amount of the tank through the Ruff intelligent gateway and will put the data on the chain in the real time.
According to the smart contract on the chain, when the customer’s storage tank inventory is lower than the warning line, the gateway automatically initiates the purchase order. After the supplier confirms the order, the chain smart contract will automatically settle the transaction.
In the architecture of Figure 1, they are IoT layer, blockchain layer and application layer:
1) IoT layer:
The supplier puts the liquid level sensor in the tank of the customer site and its own warehouse, collects and monitors the remaining amount of the tank in real time through the Ruff intelligent gateway, and reports it to the blockchain; meanwhile, automatically initiate a purchase order when the liquid level is below the warning value
2) Blockchain layer:
Including blockchain public chain and smart contract, the contract includes tank data monitoring intelligent contract, transaction and settlement business intelligence contract, the former realizes the storage business of the tank residual data chain, the latter realizes the automation order trading and automatic settlement business.
3) Application layer:
Including DApp, wallet and block browser. DApp provides order and bill management services for both the supply and demand sides, wallet provides key management and transaction digital signature service, and block browser provides browsing and querying any detailed information services such as block, transaction, account, and user wallet account management services for end users.
It is worth noting that in the process of blockchain technology application, the tank equipment of the supplier and the demand side firstly used the technology of the Internet of Things, that is, the sensor and the intelligent gateway were used to collect and monitor the tank liquid level data.
Application display on the business chain
After the system architecture layer runs through, the business between the supplier and the demander begins to interact. The IoT layer periodically reports the tank level data of the supplier and the demander by monitoring the tank level in real time. When the tank level is lower than the stock alert value, the demand side’s on-site gateway will automatically initiate the order.
After the smart contract of the blockchain layer receives the order instruction, the order confirmation is automatically performed according to the supplier tank inventory quantity, and the demand side wallet Token will be mortgage frozen according to the order purchase amount. When the order is automatically fulfilled and completed by the smart contract within the agreed time, the smart contract responsible for the settlement of the transaction will automatically perform the settlement, that is, the Token that the demander is in the mortgage freeze.
At the application layer’s DApp system demo page, you can view each order ID details, order status, buyer ID, and order initiation time. On the order status display page, you can view the order fuel quantity, estimated/actual cost, and the balance of the buyer and seller accounts.
For suppliers, the blockchain of business will bring a lot of application value, including:
1) Reasonable inventory stocking: By real-time monitoring and reporting of the liquid level data of the customer’s oil tank, the supplier can obtain the purchase time and purchase quantity of the customer’s order in advance, so as to carry out reasonable inventory stocking and improve production efficiency;
2) Reducing personnel costs: Real-time monitoring of tank level through IoT technology replaces traditional human viewing, while automatic transaction settlement on the chain reduces manual order purchase and payment settlement, thereby reducing labor costs for customers;
3) Reducing bad debts: Since each transaction order is completed in the chain, the two parties through the token realize the automatic transaction settlement on the chain, so that the supplier can reduce the problems of payment and owing in the settlement, reduce the bad debts of the enterprise and increase the production profit of the enterprise;
4) Realization of order traceability: Since each order is stored in the chain, anyone can authorize access, and key information such as the order amount cannot be tampered with, so that all customer orders can be traced back to the bank credit. When providing financial services such as financial leasing, the most credible assessment report can be provided.
As a blockchain technology company for the Internet of Things, Ruff has been focused on helping traditional companies transform the IoT blockchain technology, including underlying data access, distributed storage, chain trading and settlement, and development and deployment of smart contract DApps. And providing the best solution for traditional enterprise blockchain transformation.
In order to let more traditional enterprises understand the business logic and technology upgrade of blockchain transformation, the Ruff Enterprise Chain Reform Case Open Course was officially launched.
