Contraband
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By Diane Pickett, Regional Engagement Lead, SAP Digital Supply Chain
On a recent walk along the shoreline of Lake Ontario, I was reminded of a local legend; a rum runner’s tunnel that connects to the beach from the cellar of a distillery owner’s mansion. The ‘roaring 20s’ saw a great deal of this kind of liquid contraband, transported from local distilleries to boats along the north shore of Lake Ontario, intended for the thirsty residents of Prohibition-era Rochester, New York and beyond.
While there is a certain Gatsby-glamour that sometimes glorifies Prohibition, the bootleggers and rum runners used unsophisticated methods. There was nothing in the least bit glamorous (or safe) about running booze across Lake Ontario in the dead of winter as many lost boats and bodies washed up in Hamilton harbor.
The more things change…
Fast-forward to our own ‘roaring 20s’ and smuggling is just as lucrative: drugs, weaponry, high-end automobiles, endangered animals and their parts – and sadly, even people. Today though, smugglers have sophisticated supply chains, enabled by the same technologies legitimate organizations use.
But all that tech creates data, and data leaves a trail. From the early days of bar coding to RFID tagging to the track-and-trace with Blockchain, technology allows us to see the provenance of goods and resources. Customers are now looking for such reassurances. We want to know if the products we consume are counterfeit, made with slave labor, or have been tampered with in the distribution process.
But we could do more. Tragic cases like the deaths of 39 Vietnamese migrants in a refrigerated truck near London last year, highlight the desperate need for greater vigilance. Could the standardization of motion detectors in refrigerated (or any) transport containers help prevent similar deaths? Could it also discourage the very practice of transporting human beings like so many head of cattle?
The more things don’t have to stay the same…
Smuggling will exist so long as people want what they cannot have by legitimate means or at a price they’re willing to pay. Whether it’s as heart-breaking as a dream of a better life in another country, or as laughable as thinking a bit of powdered rhino horn will restore your virility, we humans will find a way.
Fortunately, the same ingenuity builds the tools we need to prevent harm. We design and manufacture smarter products with sensors to track temperature, humidity, tampering, and more. We make smarter vehicles and assets that track movement, unacceptable conditions, or unsanctioned stops or trips. We also use machine learning to detect patterns and anomalies in supply chain data to ferret out fraud and ensure security.
There will always be a give and play between smugglers attempting to break the law and the entities (police, legitimate companies, industry associations, etc.) trying to enforce it. But as the integration of global supply chains continues apace, the new developments and technologies touched on here could start making it much harder for bad actors to succeed. This might just help to change the risk benefit analysis enough to make a positive change. Hopefully.
To learn more about ensuring an ethical supply chain, download a recent IDC whitepaper, “Delivery as a critical element of the Digital Supply Chain”.
