Distributed Ledger Technologien im Rheinischen Revier in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Abstract

The use of Distributed Ledger Technologies in the field of production optimizes various use cases. Within the framework of the research project “Blockchain Reallabor in the Rheinisches Revier”, five use cases were defined for production in the first year of the project. The confidence in and transparency of stored data, the elimination of central entities and automatic micropayments in real time are revolutionizing auditing, product and process monitoring and life cycle assessment. With the machine data marketplace for trading process data and the rental of machine capacities in the form of subscription, for example, a Distributed Ledger creates new business models. In North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the field of users (17 percent) is currently not highly developed in comparison to service providers, infrastructure providers and research alliances (83 percent). Nevertheless, there are some projects that usually contain the described use cases in a less complex way and thus confirm their validity. An analysis of the ecosystem Distributed Ledger Technologies in the Rheinisches Revier provides some insights into the actors involved. There is a trend towards large companies implementing Distributed Ledger Technology projects. It is not possible to make a technology or infrastructure recommendation based on the developed ecosystem, since the identified use cases are handled with different infrastructures depending on the project. Finally, it should be emphasized that the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia can be considered a pioneer in Distributed Ledger Technologies in Germany. A nation-wide comparison of users from the manufacturing industry shows that over 65 percent are located in NRW. The establishment of the Distributed Ledger Technology in the small and medium business sector is, from today‘s point of view, the next step towards reaching the level of perfect productivity according to the Gartner hype cycle.