Andrea Sestino, Luca Giraldi, Elena Cedrola, Seyedeh Zahra Zamani · 5 authors
Blockchain is a buzzword today, and its application is daily increasing. Recently, literature has proposed the new concept of the Internet of Value (IoV), which refers to a view of the Internet as a means where value is transferred as easily, cheaply and reliably as data is now transferred. The ever-growing interest in Blockchain research and practice has given rise to disorganized knowledge around its application, especially for business purposes. To qualitatively assess this gap, we conducted a literature review by investigating a final number of 169 original contributions produced in the last half-decade. The insights have been analysed and systematized considering the possible contribution of the Blockchain application to the Internet of Value, to shed light on Blockchain opportunities in business value creation regarding five basic topics: Blockchain exploitation in the energy sector; Blockchain exploitation in healthcare; Blockchain exploitation in supply chain management (SCM); Blockchain exploitation in industrial marketing; and Blockchain exploitation in data privacy protection.
Liezl Steynberg, Louwrence Erasmus, Leon Pretorius
There are opportunities for disruptive applications of blockchain technology in outbound logistics management, especially with peer-to-peer networking support to keep records of verified transactions in distributed ledgers without control by an intermediate party. The impact of implementing a blockchain solution in logistics processes and the effect on process parameters is not well understood or quantified in the literature. The objective of this study is to investigate whether there are opportunities in outbound logistics operations to benefit from the application of blockchain technology and to evaluate the impact of implementing a blockchain technology solution in a specific industry use case. A design science research process, which combines qualitative and quantitative research methods, guided this study. A stochastic discrete event simulation model was developed to evaluate the impact of a blockchain solution for an industry use case in an outbound logistics process. The time to reach visibility is quantified for a Hyperledger Fabric implementation. The results indicated that it would have a significant effect on the time it takes to gain insight into the process and transparency. This study provides evidence that a blockchain solution can have a notable impact on information availability and transparency in an outbound logistics process.
Data safety concerns are critical during the whole lifecycle of any built asset from the design stage until destruction. Information security in Building Information Modeling (BIM) enabled projects represents a key factor for the whole process success. Unsuitable distribution of sensitive information may cause financial loss, lack of trust and even physical security threats. This paper would propose a novel solution to secure BIM workflow through a Blockchain technology-based lifecycle approach. The aim in this solution is to integrate a blockchain-based lifecycle management platform with BIM software. The interactions and system transactions between the two entities will be managed by distributed ledger technology and smart contracts. This will ensure workflow's security by strengthening the transparency, traceability and securing information exchange.
Algan Tezel, Dimosthenis Kifokeris, Carlos Torres Formoso, Lauri Koskela · 5 authors
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology referring to decentralized databases existing across multiple locations and participants, in which the need for intermediaries to process, validate or authenticate transactions is reduced or eliminated. Such transactions are synchronously held by computer nodes in distributed copies, with cryptographic signatures validated through consensus protocols and transparency achieved through peer-to-peer transactional access among the nodes. Blockchain-based applications can be preferred over centralized databases on the basis of high levels of trust, data security, immutability, transparency, and multi-user consensus protocols. There is growing interest in blockchain in the built environment, with a focus on procurement, the management of supply chain project-life cycle, smart cities, intelligent systems, sustainability, and decentralized organizations. However, there is little discussion on whether and how blockchain will affect the advances in lean construction (LC) and vice versa. This paper therefore proposes a framework that establishes interactions between blockchain and lean construction, which can potentially facilitate the implementation of both. It is based on a synthetic literature review. The results indicate that blockchain can facilitate the implementation of LC (e.g., recording and retrieving of Last Planner data), and vice versa (e.g., value stream mapping guiding the integration of blockchain with processes).
Prabhat Kumar, Randhir Kumar, Abhinav Kumar, A. Antony Franklin · 6 authors
The rapid expansion of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) necessitates the digitization of industrial processes in order to increase network efficiency. The integration of Digital Twin (DT) with IIoT digitizes physical objects into virtual representations to improve data analytics performance. Nevertheless, DT empowered IIoT generates a massive amount of data that is mostly sent to the cloud or edge servers for real-time analysis. However, unreliable public communication channels and lack of trust among participating entities causes various types of threats and attacks on the ongoing communication. Motivated from the aforementioned discussion, we present a blockchain and Deep Learning (DL) integrated framework for delivering decentralized data processing and learning in IIoT network. The framework first present a new DT model that facilitates construction of a virtual environment to simulate and replicate security-critical processes of IIoT. Second, we propose a blockchain-based data transmission scheme that uses smart contracts to ensure integrity and authenticity of data. Finally, the DL scheme is designed to apply the Intrusion Detection System (IDS) against valid data retrieved from blockchain. In DL scheme, a Long Short Term Memory-Sparse AutoEncoder (LSTMSAE) technique is proposed to learn the spatial-temporal representation. The extracted characteristics are further used by the proposed Multi-Head Self-Attention (MHSA)-based Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BiGRU) algorithm to learn long-distance features and accurately detect attacks. The practical implementation of our proposed framework proves considerable enhancement of communication security and data privacy in DT empowered IIoT network.
Plateforme fiable utilisant la technologie DLT pour un environnement industriel basé sur l'IoT Les modèles économiques collaboratifs subissent une évolution innovante basée sur les technologies modernes telles que l'Internet des objets (IoT), l'intelligence artificielle (IA), le Cloud, etc. Dans ce contexte, un exemple type est celui des systèmes des chaines d'approvisionnement (supply chain). Néanmoins, les systèmes actuels opérant en mode centralisé sont incapables de gérer/analyser les quantités massives de données collectées. De plus, la prolifération des appareils IoT augmente le besoin de plateformes qui prennent en charge la transparence des données pour assurer une confiance totale dans le partage d'informations et pour permettre la collaboration fiable entre les différents partenaires. La Blockchain comme « Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) » est une solution prometteuse pour les nouveaux défis technologiques des entreprises dans un environnent collaboratif. Elle est basée sur une plateforme cryptographiquement décentralisée, ce qui assure l'amélioration de la productivité des applications et la suppression de nombreuses limitations telles que le manque de confiance et la transparence des données. Cependant, avec la croissance des données IoT, la Blockchain fait face à de nombreux défis majeurs qui l'empêchent de s'intégrer dans les systèmes « supply chain ».Alors que de nombreuses améliorations pour la Blockchain sont en cours de développement, de test ou de création, Il convient de citer d'autres plateformes décentralisées qui pourraient répondre au contexte des « supply chains ». La nouvelle technologie DLT basée sur « Directed Acyclic Graph » (DAG), en tant qu'alternative à Blockchain, peut résoudre les inconvénients de la Blockchain pour répondre à toutes les exigences de « supply chains » y compris le passage à l'échelle avec un grand nombre de participants et appareils IoT dans son réseau. De plus, DAG réduit la taille du ‘Ledger' à l'aide de la technique « snapshot », et réduit les frais de transaction à une valeur négligeable. Aussi elle introduit la possibilité de travailler ‘offline'. Néanmoins, DAG présente des contraintes supplémentaires telles que les limitations résultantes des « smart contract » et l'absence d'un mécanisme de distribution des tâches. Pour cela, l'objectif de cette thèse est de définir une nouvelle plateforme de « supply chain » permettant l'intégration des différentes technologies DLT et qui prend en considération la prolifération de l'IoT et les besoins de nouveaux modèles de collaboration.Dans cette thèse, nous proposons de combiner les deux technologies Blockchain et DAG en une seule plateforme pour satisfaire les nouvelles exigences du marché tout en résolvant les limitations causées par les inconvénients de ces DLTs. De plus, nous proposons un algorithme distribué qui s'exécute du côté DAG pour distribuer les nombreuses tâches entre les différents appareils IoT, résultant en un système performant avec équilibre de charge. Par la suite, nous considérerons les aspects de confidentialité des données et nous étudions les impacts de la transparence des DLTs en mettant en lumière les projets de chaîne d'approvisionnement existants. L'étude propose plusieurs mécanismes qui pourraient être utilisés pour satisfaire les exigences des « supply chain ». Enfin, nous concluons que notre plateforme proposée dispose de l'infrastructure appropriée, y compris « smart contract » et « DAG » pour les améliorations requises.
U ovom radu opisani su osnovni principi distribuiranih sistema, razvoj blokčejn tehnologija kroz tri faze, pojam Ethereum platforme, kao i arhitektura klijenata za pristup Ethereum mreži. Predstavljeno je rešenje u vidu implementacije promene na Ethereum klijentu kao posledice zahteva Ethereum zajednice za ažuriranje Ethereum platforme
Yang Zhang, Yongquan Liang, Bin Jia, Pinxiang Wang
The blockchain-enabled cloud manufacturing is an emerging service-oriented paradigm, and the scheduling and process optimization for blockchain-enabled cloud manufacturing (SPO-BCMfg) are crucial to achieving the service-oriented goal. The blockchain-enabled cloud manufacturing paradigm improves the collaboration capabilities and information security over the ordinary cloud manufacturing while incorporating distributed storage, consensus mechanism, and cloud-edge collaboration. The above characteristics make SPO-BCMfg a multiobjective scheduling optimization problem. This article establishes the multiobjective SPO-BCMfg model based on a dynamic selection evolutionary algorithm to address the problem. First, we carry out the architecture and the modeling of the blockchain cloud manufacturing system. Then, a novel dynamic selection evolutionary algorithm is proposed, which is used to schedule and optimize the model for the process. In the stage of evolution, the algorithm uses a diversity-based population partitioning technique that utilizes the dynamic distance to realize the selection of elite solutions. The method was experimented on the SPO-BCMfg problem facing five and eight objectives. The experimental results show that the algorithm has a strong processing capacity in terms of convergence and diversity compared with the other advanced evolutionary algorithms.
Digital Transformation in Industry
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies
The growing popularity and features of digital twins have made them key elements in Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT). In this paper, we propose the use of digital twins as an indirection mechanism, instead of accessing directly the actual IoT devices, in order to offer secure sensing and actuation in IoT systems through Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), which can enhance the security and transparency of such digital twins. In particular, we leverage advances in Web of Things (WoT) and permissioned blockchains to build flexible and secure digital twins. Specifically, we build smart contract-based digital twins of IoT devices that follow W3C's WoT standards. This architecture offers decentralization, immutability, auditability, and enhanced availability and reliability.
Amer A. Hijazi, Srinath Perera, Rodrigo N. Calheiros, Ali Mohammed Alashwal
Purpose Despite a large amount of BIM data at the handover stage, it is still difficult to identify and effectively isolate valuable construction supply chain (CSC) data that need to be reliably handed over for operation. Moreover, the role of reconciling disparate data is usually played by one party. The integration of blockchain and BIM is a plausible framework for building a reliable digital asset lifecycle. This paper proposes a BIM single source of truth (BIMSSoT) data model using blockchain for ensuring a reliable CSC data delivery. Design/methodology/approach This paper utilises a blended methodology, the foundation of which is ingrained in business and management research with elements of information and communication technology (ICT) research wherever required. Knowledge elicitation case studies utilising novel interventions such as a data flow diagram (DFD), taxonomy and entity-relationship diagram (ERD) were used in this paper to develop the BIMSSoT data model. The model was validated using an expert forum, and its technological feasibility was established by developing a proof of concept. Findings The practical contribution of this research leads to the progression of BIM towards digital engineering to go beyond object-based 3D modelling by building structured and reliable datasets, transitioning from project-centric records to a digital ecosystem of linked databases by utilizing blockchain's potential for ensuring trusted data. Originality/value To the best of the author's knowledge, prior to this paper, no research had investigated a detailed data model development leveraging blockchain and BIM to integrate an immutable and complete record of CSC data as another dimension of BIM for operations.
Background: Several product lifecycle management systems (PLMs) have been implemented in the industrial sector for managing the data of the product from the design up to the disposal or recycling stage. However, these PLMs face certain challenges in managing the complex and decentralized product lifecycles. Methods: To this aim, this work investigates the currently implemented PLMs used in industries through the exploration of various software reviews and selection websites. Accordingly, these existing PLMs are quantitatively compared and analyzed. Results: The analysis shows that most of the existing PLMs do not contain all the required features; therefore, industries integrate different software to create a full-fledged PLM system. However, this practice results in reducing the overall system efficiency. In this context, this paper assesses and recommends a blockchain-based innovative solution that overcomes the challenges of existing PLMs, hence increasing the overall system efficiency. Furthermore, this work argues, in a logical way, that the recommended blockchain-based platform provides a secure and connected infrastructure for data handling, processing, and storage at different stages of the product lifecycle. Conclusions: This work can be considered among the first to compare the currently implemented PLMs with a novel blockchain-based method. Thus, the stakeholders can utilize the outputs of this research in their analysis and decision-making processes for implementing the blockchain in their organizations.
Construction supply chains (CSC) are characterized by their converging structure and the hierarchical payment system which is inherently related. Due to the pursuit of diverging goals and mutual interdependencies, risks and trust problems between stakeholders occur. Contracts are used to govern these complex collaborations. To track compliance to contract terms, various activities are executed by involved stakeholders. These activities do not add any value to an end-product, cause intransparency, are costly and cause conflicts. Therefore, a combination of asset tracking and blockchain technology is investigated in this paper to address these problems. A plug-and-play framework of interacting applications and a workflow to operate them are proposed. Proof of this concept is provided by developing prototypical applications and by testing them in various practice-based scenarios. Simplified asset tracking throughout supply chains was realized and linked to smart contracts. This resulted in semi-automated compliance tracking and an immutable record of transactions. Therefore, this work provides more insight into combining asset tracking and blockchain for compliance checking in the construction industry. By doing so, further automation of construction processes, increased transparency between stakeholders and a reduction of conflicts can be enabled. However, it remains clear that many other variables impact on transparency and trust; and while technology can make improvements, considerable procedural security and control measures are needed in addition. Therefore, we focus on semi-automation of workflows using distributed ledger technology.
Jin Hong Tan, Siaw Chuing Loo, Nurshuhada Zainon, Nur Mardhiyah Aziz · 5 authors
Purpose Although building information modelling (BIM) brings various benefits and open up the construction industry to many new possibilities, it is not without some challenges. Blockchain has the potential to resolve some of these problems. It has shown that blockchain and BIM can potentially work together in bringing various benefits to all project stakeholders. However, there is a lack of research and knowledge in relation to blockchain-based BIM. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to close this gap by looking into the potential functionality and workability of blockchain within a BIM environment. Design/methodology/approach A four-stage preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses systematic literature review technique has been used to review the blockchain- and BIM-related information sources published. A total of 53 journal articles, 13 books and 27 other resources including that of reports and websites have been included in this paper. Findings Blockchain-based BIM has countless possibilities, ranging from simple tasks such as tracking of orders to automation of construction payment claims. The literatures have suggested that the several weaknesses that BIM possesses including trust issue, asset ownership issue and data reliability issue could be resolved by incorporating blockchain into its processes. Originality/value Because of the lack of researches on the workability of blockchain and BIM, this paper aims to close this gap by proposing a framework for the interaction between blockchain and BIM for a typical building project. This paper has reviewed a substantial amount of currently available knowledge on blockchain-based BIM and its relevancy to the construction industry. This paper believes that the information could be of use to potential BIM tools maker and the construction industry for the betterment of BIM implementation throughout a project life cycle.
In this paper, a layered architecture incorporating Blockchain technology (BCT) and Machine Learning (ML) is proposed in the context of the Industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT) for smart manufacturing applications. The proposed architecture is composed of five layers covering sensing, network/protocol, transport enforced with BCT components, application and advanced services (i.e., BCT data, ML and cloud) layers. BCT enables gathering sensor access control information, while ML brings its effectivity in attack detection such as DoS (Denial of Service), DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service), injection, man in the middle (MitM), brute force, cross-site scripting (XSS) and scanning attacks by employing classifiers differentiating between normal and malicious activity. The design of our architecture is compared to similar ones in the literature to point out potential benefits. Experiments, based on the IIoT dataset, have been conducted to evaluate our contribution, using four metrics: Accuracy, Precision, Sensitivity and Matthews Correlation Coefficient (MCC). Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Decision Tree (DT), Random Forest, Naive Bayes, AdaBoost and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers are evaluated regarding these four metrics. Even if more experiments are required, it is illustrated that the proposed architecture can reduce significantly the number of DDoS, injection, brute force and XSS attacks and threats within an advanced framework for sensor access control in IIoT networks based on a smart contract along with ML classifiers.
Digital Twins and the Internet of Things (IoT) are two of the most prominent recent concepts and technologies. The IoT supports many applications that merge the physical with the cyber world. This highlights the need for improved security. Here, we argue that digital twins can help in securing and strengthening the IoT by using them for interacting with the actual IoT devices. While most digital twins implementations are centralized, we propose to integrate Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and digital twins into the IoT to realize decentralized, secure, available, flexible, and auditable blockchain-based IoT services for IoT devices that follow the W3C Web of Things (WoT) standards. In this work, we present the design of SmartTwin, a blockchain-based digital twin framework for which we provide two different implementations using two different blockchains, we present the design trade-offs, and we discuss future research and development directions.
Digital transformation is unstoppable and ongoing process that affects all segments of our everyday lives such as healthcare, banking and finance systems, public administration, or postal and logistics systems. One of the main engines of this process, among many, is the use of cryptocurrencies. Both of these concepts are usually addressed from the firm perspective, but they should be considered from the individual’s perspective as well. Cryptocurrencies recently face increased cyber security threats, thereby affecting the digital transformation and posing additional challenges to it. Therefore, this paper gives a brief overview of security threats and challenges characteristic for cryptocurrency technology today and discusses what can be expected tomorrow. We provide insight how these challenges can affect digital transformation process and propose ways to increase the level of protection for both individuals and organizations.
B Kohl, M. Krüger, Tobias Dietl, Michael Lechner · 8 authors
Abstract Digitalization in the metal forming industry needs to be improved to achieve the goals set by Industrie 4.0. Distributed-Ledger-Technology (DLT) has been identified as a promising foundation for tackling the underlying problem of consistent information exchange. DLT-based solutions have already been developed, but none explicitly covers the roll forming use-case. This paper presents a Hyperledger-Fabric-based blockchain network to fill this research gap. This network is specifically designed for the roll forming industry, while still aiming to meet general information exchange requirements. The roll forming use-case is divided into the material supply chain and a design/simulation workflow. Participants and parameters in these two data transfer chains have been validated with the help of industry experts. Running the conceptualized network on an on-premise server has allowed for a detailed evaluation. Feedback provided by experts of the roll forming industry shows the potential of the presented network. Furthermore, the presented solution covers requirements often neglected by existing approaches like large data handling, compatibility to existing interfaces, secure communication, and access rights definition. In summary, this paper provides a pioneering implementation and evaluation of a DLT-based solution for the roll forming industry and, therefore, a foundation for the next steps towards Industrie 4.0.
Open access
2 source records
Digital Transformation in Industry
Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies
Blockchain systems are challenged by the so-called Trilemma tradeoff: decentralization, scalability and security. Infrastructure and node configuration, choice of the Consensus Protocol and complexity of the application transactions are cited amongst the factors that affect the tradeoffs balance. Given that Blockchains are complex, dynamic dynamic systems, a dynamic approach to their management and reconfiguration at runtime is deemed necessary to reflect the changes in the state of the infrastructure and application. This paper introduces the utilisation of Digital Twins for this purpose. The novel contribution of the paper is design of a framework and conceptual architecture of a Digital Twin that can assist in maintaining the Trilemma tradeoffs of time critical systems. The proposed Digital Twin is illustrated via an innovative approach to dynamic selection of Consensus Protocols. Simulations results show that the proposed framework can effectively support the dynamic adaptation and management of the Blockchain