Honeywell Brings Blockchain to Used Aircraft Parts Market

[ropman76]

While this a great service for the aircraft parts industry, I am not seeing why this couldn’t be done with a database and a properly secured REST API.

[fenwick67]

It's just like the IBM Food Trust and a million other big corporate digitization projects - it's just marketing.

It is likely not a blockchain but just a web application with a ledger database behind the curtain.

[ris]

When it comes to the whole "supply chain blockchain" thing, I agree it is easy to just think "so, you just mean a signed log?", but there is actually an aspect to the whole thing that makes actual blockchains relevant here - and that's because they're both trying to solve the "double spending" problem.

In this case the thing that a middleman might be trying to "double spend" is a part with a legitimate provenance. A simple record system might show that a middleman received part A from a legitimate source, but not immediately highlight that they sold on parts B and C too, each claiming to be part A. Blockchains solve that problem in a nice way with decentralized trust.

Now, to what extent decentralized trust is relevant in a system apparently operated by Honeywell in a way that seems completely centralized... you know as much as me.

[Reelin]

> The encrypted digital trail cuts the need for paperwork and makes it quick and easy to check the certification and origin of a part ...

> Many websites list used aircraft parts but omit details like final prices or provenance documents.

[cwilkes]

What can’t be done without a database and a rest api? That comment can be applied to anything.

[arisAlexis]

in every article with title "company X uses blockchain for Y" the top comment is someone saying "I don't see why".

Do you have any idea about how the particular company schemantics work? How parts are sourced in this industry? What certification issues are? basically blockchain is about trust.

So you know better than the company management and deem that their CTO made the wrong decision with zero information.

[gok]

This is like arguing that TLS is stupid because you could just use a properly secure fiber cable.

[seibelj]

Reduces risk of fraud or information getting corrupted accidentally, as changing one bit of data would corrupt the blockchain.

I’m not saying you couldn’t do it without blockchain, but there is an argument about why that property is inherently useful in this market.

[fenwick67]

So sick of these companies using blockchain hype to sell what is really just a centralized database.

[eli]

This is going to sound like trolling but I don’t think there ARE any blockchain companies who wouldn’t be better off with a centralized database.

[AlexMuir]

Here’s the ‘groundbreaking blockchain marketplace’. Looks like a shitty ad-filled Bootstrap template to me. Blockchain is vaguely mentioned halfway down the “about” page.

https://www.godirecttrade.com/about-us

[woah]

I’m not seeing any of the great visual design that blockchain is supposed to bring into the equation for enterprises.

[TheMagicHorsey]

"Honeywell Aerospace first deployed the system based on open-source blockchain technology called Hyperledger and tested it on Microsoft Corp.’s Azure cloud. The company moved the blockchain to an internal cloud to be able to control security and data privacy, Mr. Muthukrishnan said."

So in other words, they might as well have built a normal application on a reliable database like MySQL.

I expected more from WSJ, but apparently their journalists are morons and don't exercise even iota of skepticism in the face of blockchain hype.

Blockchain offers real benefits ... but this application is not one of them.

WSJ: HIRE PEOPLE THAT DO THEIR JOBS PROPERLY.

[chaz6]

I do not see how this would prevent an imitation part being substituted for a real part somewhere along the line.

[joezydeco]

So is there a market potential here? A way to hash a physical object?

[momentmaker]

EY had just released Nightfall:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/say-hello-nightfall-paul-brod...

[brighton36]

Linked lists are the future of aircraft parts!