Mobile-based Verification in Anti-counterfeit Commodity Supply Chain Management Systems

This article describes a proposed system that integrates a mobile-based solution to fight counterfeit products and uses the supply chain system to illustrate the solution. The system, referred to as the anti-counterfeit commodity supply chain management system, provides a network which tracks movement of genuine products and allows the end user to authenticate their genuineness through a reward system. All the dealers in a particular line of products are networked from the manufacturer to the retailer. Upon purchase of a product from a networked retail outlet, the customer is issued with a receipt which bears a unique number that he will feed into his mobile phone system. This will prompt a response regarding the authenticity of both the retail outlet and the product either through an affirmative response or by discount rewarding using mobile money transfer. The redeeming of the discount serves both as a motivation to product verification while at the same time fetching the allowed discount. This will tremendously boost confidence in both the product quality and the dealers. It will go a long way in shutting out unscrupulous dealers bent on mere profiteering. The system is most suitable in regulated products like drugs in the pharmaceutical industry and petroleum products in the energy industry. This article describes how the proposed anti-counterfeit commodity supply chain management system would work and outlines its benefits. It also discusses how such a system can be funded, provides some challenges and gives some conclusions.