The Idea in Brief Sophisticated technologies now allow companies
to gather unprecedented detail about where their goods come from
and how they progress through the supply chain. The information
can be used to improve product quality and safety, and to ensure
authenticity. The technologies—which range from miniature radio-
frequency ID tags to DNA markers to bar codes—can reveal a
wealth of data about a product’s provenance and greatly increase
the transparency of supply chains. Consumers and other
stakeholders want to know more and more about product
provenance. Companies that fail to open their supply chains to
public inspection will find that others will do it for them.
Artwork: Michael Johansson, He Had Been Packing All Night, 2005,
boxes, bags, 4.0 x 0.6 x 0.4 m The origins of a company’s
products used to be pretty murky. Beyond the supply chain
function, virtually no one cared. Of course, all that’s changed.
Consumers, governments, and companies are demanding details
about the systems and sources that del