GE Transportation joins blockchain group

GE Transportation, the General Electric company that provides supply chain technology tools, said Monday that it has joined the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA), a trade group supporting the use of data-sharing software in logistics.

Chicago-based GE Transportation will join more than 230 other companies in BiTA and contribute to the association's goals of providing blockchain education and standards development in the transport and logistics industry. Other BiTA members include logistics industry companies like BNSF Railway Co., UPS Inc., FedEx Corp., SAP SE, McLeod Software Corp., and Trimble Inc.

Joining BiTA is an extension of the firm's practice of using data and analytics to drive both the productivity of its internal divisions and results for its customers, GE Transportation CIO Monica Caldas said in a statement.

Blockchain technology creates a distributed ledger of information that can be read by all the members of a particular group, but cannot be changed by any individual member. Whether it's used to track logistics data and transactions or to support cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, the technology allows trading partners to share access to secure databases.

Joining the group is GE Transportation's latest step in evolving from its industrial roots as a supplier of locomotives into a provider of digital solutions for supply chain applications. On Tuesday, the firm announced that it plans to expand an online cargo-tracking pOréal called Port Optimizer at California's Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles in July.