The US Department of State financed the development of the blockchain system that the clothing company will use
Harvard University and the renowned American clothing company Levis Strauss & CO, announced on Thursday, January 24th, through a press release, that they made an important alliance in order to develop a system to improve health and the safety of the human personnel who works in the factories.
The proposal was designed jointly, in addition, with a group of experts from Think Tank New America, to carry out the development of the system and the platform on which the blockchain system will be sustained.
The system that these companies seek to implement since this year aims to replace, consequently, the antiquated system of health and safety audits which operates in the companies, this in order to improve the working conditions of the personnel and increase the effectiveness and productivity of the companies. In practical terms, the system will assemble a report structure which evaluates, step by step, the controls that are conducted in a common audit.
Dr. Eileen McNeely, Director of the Health and Sustainability initiative T.H. Chan of Harvard University, recently told the media that these processes were previously done manually and with margins of error that can be improved. “Over the last 25 years, work in supply chains has been monitored mainly by audits. A distributed query system on the blockchain that goes directly to the source offers a new solution”, she said.
According to the press release, it was learned that the alliance and the launch of this system will be used for the first time in three clothing factories of the company Levis Strauss & CO, currently operating in Mexico.
The first pilot of this new audit process based on blockchain technology will be implemented at the beginning of the second quarter of this year 2019, and will continue the process of testing and use for next year. These factories located in Mexico will be the first ones to use the system, which will place an annual survey prepared by more than 5,000 employees of the company in a system supported by blockchain.
About the survey that will be installed in the system, it was discovered that it was built and designed by the School of Public Health T.H. Chan from Harvard University. This survey will use indicators that were carefully studied. In addition, Allison Prince, Executive Director of New America’s Blockchain Trust Accelerator, added that system security is a strong advantage when commenting that the results of the blockchain survey “will never be manipulated”.
According to the local media report, the blockchain that will be used in the system will be provided by ConsenSys, a blockchain company mainly founded by Joseph Lubin, one of the people in charge of Ethereum (ETH).
The company is going through difficulties that have affected its operations and its intellectual and technical personnel, which has led the company to make layoffs of up to 10%. It is hoped that these initiatives will reverse the situation and achieve positive changes.
By María Rodríguez
