Putting manufacturing processes into a tokenized environment has many advantages for all industry participants.
Using blockchain in any supply chain has the potential to dramatically improve transparency and traceability as well as reduce administrative costs. A blockchained system can help participants place, respond and manage bids, record prices, date, location, quality, certification and other data to more effectively manage the process and goods throughout it in real time. It can also help create an ecosystem of producers and buyers that cuts out the traditional middlemen and drops costs while providing real-time monitoring and tracking of the entire process.
Many of the major consultancy agencies, in fact, are now directly referencing blockchained supply chains as one of the best ways to drive value all the way through the process.
For example, Deloitte suggests that the primary potential benefits of integrating blockchain into a supply chain are that the technology:
- Increases traceability of material supply chains to ensure corporate standards are met.
- Lowers losses from counterfeit or grey market trading
- Improves visibility and compliance over outsourced contract manufacturing
- Reduces paperwork and administrative costs
The secondary benefits are also major. These include:
- Strengthened corporate reputation through providing transparency of materials used in products.
- Improved credibility and public trust of shared data
- Reduced public relations risks from supply chain malpractice
- Better engagement of share and stakeholders.
In sum? It is no longer a matter of why introduce blockchained applications into this environment, but which ones will best serve existing manufacturing needs and future ones. Especially as manufacturing itself begins to change with the impact of IoT and continues to operate with a global footprint.
The global manufacturing market is growing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the vertical represents a USD $500 Billion infrastructure investment between the years 2017 – 2020. This includes the growing demand for aerospace and composite materials, EV autos, medical devices, robotics, drones and IoT.
However large procurement firms control the access in many hardware manufacturing companies. They increase prices, do not provide IP protection and make it difficult for small and medium-sized businesses to easily source manufacturing – which itself is a global proposition in the 21st century.
Enter SyncFab, a new idea in manufacturing supply chain management. The platform eliminates intermediaries and brokers in the hardware manufacturing process, saving money, time and headaches. The system allows buyers to connect directly to hardware manufacturers, place bids, select vendors and provide effortless production tracking. It also allows manufacturers to eliminate marketing costs by having buyers directly connect to the manufacturing facility. The SyncFab platform also guarantees payments via smart contract and gives producers full control of pricing and capabilities.
The SyncFab platform was established in 2013 and to date has established an online, decentralized buyer-to-manufacturer platform which already aggregates orders and sends requests directly to matching manufacturers.
It is the first peer-to-peer Industrial IoT (internet of things) manufacturing blockchain for the hardware manufacturing supply chain. The company has also already established impressive partnerships that include the City of San Leandro, the Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute and Bay Area Advanced Manufacturing.
The company has also already received a 97% ICO score from Aingel’s ICO Scoring system which predicts the likelihood of successful ICOs, and has already raised more than USD $1 million from its public presale efforts.
The SyncFab system is connected via the MFG Utility token. The token plays a vital role in the platform in that it creates a way for online value sharing to occur within the decentralized manufacturing ecosystem already in existence.
Here are the details of the upcoming SyncFab token sale:
The MFG token will, in turn, be used by early adopters of the SyncFab system to pay for order quotes. After the build financed by the crowd sale, users will be able to unlock and update smart contracts and pay transaction fees.
MFG tokens will also incentivize manufacturers for the traditionally uncompensated time in creating quotes and allow manufacturers to be more responsive to time-sensitive deadlines. The tokens are also designed to solve current supply chain trust dilemmas – namely, purchasers do not know enough about their suppliers to place an order confidently.
The SyncFab Smart Manufacturing Smart Contract Protocol will utilize blockchain’s system of inalterable records (the immutable ledger) to match purchasers with their most ideal manufacturers, expedite procurement and production without middlemen, and help build an online reputation within the system that will show a track record of performance, service history, and reliability.
Purchasing MFG tokens to simplify the process of manufacturing and procurement creates the following benefits:
- Creates access to the SyncFab existing production capacity network
- Provides support for the continued build-out and evolution of the SyncFab smart manufacturing production capacity network
- Expands partner network adoption of the MFG token, smart contract and blockchain buildout
- Incentivizes workers to embrace the technology while compensating them for critical functions frequently taken for granted (such as RFQ and bid requests).
- Incentivizes bidders (manufacturers) to respond with more competitive bids much faster
- Hard-to-find manufacturers and small to medium sized businesses are integrated into a completely integrated ecosystem where anyone can find them.
The workflow for purchase bids is straightforward.
- The purchaser creates an RFQ that is listed on the SyncFab platform as an auction listing
- The purchaser will submit a project budget that is inclusive of an overage amount. The budget will be visible to manufacturers while the overage allowance will not.
- The purchaser adds the MFG token bid reward. The system will set a minimum amount for all RFQ auctions.
- RFQ’s come in bid packages of three bids. If the Purchaser wants more bids, they will have to buy additional packages.
- The RFQ is sent via the Smart Manufacturing Blockchain contract to multiple manufacturers for bidding.
- Manufacturers review the RFQ and decide whether or not to respond with a bid.
- The SyncFab system compares bids and automatically rejects those above the tolerance level set by the purchaser although manufacturers whose bid exceeds the tolerance price will be allowed to resubmit an altered quote.The purchaser selects the winning bid.
- All manufacturing respondents will then split the bid reward, with the highest proportion going to the winning bidder, but all participants receiving a piece of the bid award.
Here are the details of the upcoming SyncFab token sale:
Token name: MFG
Token base: ERC-20 utility token
Token supply: 1,000,000,000
Token Accepted: ETH
Token sale duration: Presale underway (25% Bonus). Main public sale begins February 15, 2018
Token sale target: USD $15 million (soft cap) – USD $30 million (hard cap)
Token price: 1 ETH = 5,000 MFG
