Gathering information along production nodes will be familiar to Blockchain users, but there is a notable difference. Digital threads are platform agnostic, whereas blockchain nodes require all suppliers along the chain to use the specific technology.
It is this requirement that has hindered the widespread adoption of blockchain and allowed digital threads to rise in popularity.
Digital threads allow for faster, wider adoption based on the data collection methods that suppliers are already using. However, this unstructured data across multiple platforms and vendors can be messy and insecure. Blockchain solves this challenge through its uniformity and security.
Another key hindrance to blockchain is the shortage of people who know how to set up, deploy and monitor the system. Conversely, digital threads will be used by data scientists, technologists and engineers, giving a far greater pool of potential talent to train as the project leader.
Blockchain is considered to be highly secure and has delivered a 65% year-on-year decline in illicit cryptocurrency transactions.2 However, for companies without the talent to deploy blockchain, robust cyber security allows them to adopt digital threads earlier than otherwise possible.
Fortified cloud security means that once the data storage is secured, companies can gather information at a greater depth from their digital threads.