Less than five years ago, the idea of a "cargo community" at an airport was little more than an attempt by various cargo executives to know all the names up and down the supply chain. What each member of the supply chain did, however, was largely a mystery.

The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) is partnering with X-wave Innovations Inc. (XII), a research and development firm specializing in the defense, homeland security, transportation and energy fields, to develop an embedded sensor system for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The solution is capable of measuring the levels of temperature, pressure and strain on various rocket propulsion engine components.

In logistics, the best known blockchain pilot program involved Maersk and IBM. It centered on creating a digital distributed ledger to create a single electronic place where all the myriad documents related to a shipment could be housed.

A growing number of companies are paying to track in real time everything from truckloads of pork chops to shipping containers full of exercise equipment.

As populations grow and emerging markets industrialize, companies are facing a serious long-term challenge: how to meet surging consumer demand while minimizing environmental damage and sustaining the planet's natural resources.