Uploaded on 2019-01-05 by Mike Fabrizi

The above photo, which was taken by me, is a piece of fine Italian marble. It was probably quarried in the town of Carrara, which is located in the northernmost tip of Tuscany. Marble such as this is known the world over for its beauty and durability, and is incorporated into both residential and commercial buildings around the world. After being quarried, the marble was transported from Europe to North America via the global logistics system. All the while, accounting and information systems accounted for and tracked the marble as it made its way from quarry to ship to surface transportation and then to the construction company responsible for its final installation. Had it been deployed more recently, it might have been tracked via RFID chips and GPS, so that its location would be known in real-time. In addition, the information systems used to account for and track the shipment would have used components, including hardware, software, and cloud storage, from all over the world. For example, cloud storage vendors in India could have participated in the information systems used to account for the marble. The memory chips used in these systems were likely from Taiwan.