Simon Laursen Bager, Boris Düdder, Fritz Henglein, Juan Manuel Hébert · 5 authors
Blockchain and distributed ledger technology (BC/DLT) provides distributed databases with decentralized governance, tamper-proof recording, high availability and non-copyable digital assets, which have made it a natural technological basis for supply chain management. In this paper, we introduce REALISTIC, a novel event-based modeling framework for supply chain networks (SCNs) that includes production processes . It extends McCarty’s Resources-Events-Agents (REA) accounting model with secure transformations , which, across the entire SCN, guarantee that certified output resources cannot be digitally produced ex nihilo , but require certified input resources of at least the same amount as what is produced. This generalizes the no-double-spend guarantee of current BC/DLT to (digital twins of) physical resources and their production. Authenticated human or robotic Internet of Things (IoT) actors digitally sign and cryptographically commit to the veracity of real-world events on an immutable database, without having to take responsibility for their aggregate consequences. User-specifiable interpretations, corresponding to queries and analytical functions in database systems, provide auditable aggregate information computed from recorded events across the entire SCN. This includes fine-grained and trustworthy tracing of final products through multiple stages of production processes, semi-finished products, quality certifications and transportation all the way back to their raw materials. We present a case study for an end-to-end coffee supply chain that tracks fine-grained and detailed information from a farmer’s coffee cherries to retail coffee bags, involving all its actors. Our model handles product provenance; auditable sustainability, quality and trade information; production processes from parchment via green to roasted coffee; product quality tests; farmer certifications; and transportation across the entire coffee supply chain. It is based on field work involving farmers, cooperatives, processors, traders, importers, and a major roasting company stretching from Colombia to Scandinavia. Its REALISTIC-based modeling is the foundation for the design of our prototype implementation, which includes Ethereum blockchain code, RDBMS-based server code and a web app client. Their source code is publicly available on GitHub.
The growing demand for transparency and trust in supply chain systems has accelerated the adoption of decentralized technologies capable of delivering tamper-proof and verifiable transaction histories. This paper presents a blockchain-integrated framework built on .NET and Azure Confidential Ledger to enhance supply chain visibility and traceability across distributed logistics networks. The proposed system leverages the immutability of blockchain and the confidentiality guarantees of trusted execution environments to securely record and validate every logistical event—from procurement to final delivery—without exposing sensitive operational data. By integrating Azure Confidential Ledger with ASP.NET Core microservices, the framework ensures secure data logging and access control while maintaining compatibility with enterprise-grade identity and authorization mechanisms. Data is ingested through RESTful APIs and processed using Entity Framework Core for transactional integrity. A modular architecture allows easy extension into existing logistics platforms while providing real-time dashboards and alerting via SignalR and Power BI. Experimental evaluation demonstrates the system’s efficiency in handling concurrent events, maintaining low latency, and preventing unauthorized data modifications. This study offers a scalable and privacy-preserving design pattern for organizations aiming to modernize supply chain management using blockchain technology in secure cloud environments, establishing a foundation for future innovations in decentralized logistics infrastructure
Roshan Jahan, Abdul Majid, Alina Khan, Aksha Malik · 5 authors
Blockchain has emerged as a revolutionary alternative for ensuring authenticity, fostering trust, and improving transparency in supply chain management, particularly within the rapidly expanding secondary markets for luxury and collectible items. This article provides a comprehensive assessment and analysis of blockchain applications specifically designed to address significant issues, including counterfeit products, provenance verification, and consumer trust in the resale market. Users may access the transfer history, ownership history, and validity of a product due to the blockchain's decentralized and unchangeable record properties. Blockchain significantly enhances item traceability, elevates consumer confidence, and increases resale values due to the emphasis on verified authenticity in both empirical and theoretical research. While implementing the blockchain technology users faces considerable challenges that includes data security concerns, high infrastructure costs, extensive interoperability issues, and technological complexities across several sectors. This article focuses on critical implementation approaches via qualitative secondary research and methodical examination of academic publications, industry reports, and case studies, notably featuring the Aura Blockchain Consortium. The research shows that blockchain has the potential to transform the resale business by reducing transaction costs, enhancing efficiency, and fostering a reliable marketplace; nevertheless, ongoing developments and standardization are essential for wider use and integration. It encompasses smart contract-based Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), public versus private blockchain topologies, and the secure association of tangible items with their NFTs.
Technology evolution has long allowed for the better supply chain management. Now, the world is experiencing the emergence of new technologies: for example, blockchain technology. This technology has already proven itself in several areas, including the financial sector. It is now a question of exploiting it with Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) to improve the supply chain performance. Thanks to a study of the literature, we were able to present how blockchain can improve the supply chain management by integrating it with ERP systems and the problems it can solve.
Abstract Maritime supply chain (MarSC) stakeholders interact with third parties (e.g. freight forwarders, 3PLs, financial institutes, custom authorities) to facilitate the cargo flow and exchange of information, documents, or financials. Hence, MarSC stakeholders are increasingly interested in innovative technological solutions that vouch for the authenticity and/or the ownership of digital assets without the control of a central third party. Extended research is carried out to prove how applications based on the distributed ledger technology or blockchain address these requirements, yet limited research investigates their purchasing process and economic implications. This paper uses the phytosanitary certificate in an international supply chain flow as a case study where interaction between multiple stakeholders is fundamental and analyses the purchase scenarios of a blockchain-based tool. To do so, it uses a theoretical model that identifies and quantifies the costs and benefits incurred by MarSC stakeholders, formulates gain-sharing scenarios and presents the results of a sensitivity analysis to show the dependence between the data-use and the potential economic gains it generates. The results show that freight forwarders could share economic benefits with shippers or consignees to anticipate purchasing a blockchain-based tool.
A logistics service integrator (LSI) usually requires a logistics service provider (LSP) to carry out smart transformation in order to improve the level of logistics service. However, LSP’s smart transformation faces uncertainty in terms of investments and income, which seriously hinders LSP’s enthusiasm for logistics service innovation. In this paper, we construct a logistics service supply chain (LSSC) consisting of an LSI and an LSP to explore the incentive mechanism for LSPs to undergo smart transformation. As a benchmark for comparison, we first obtain the equilibrium results under centralized decision making and wholesale price (WP) contracts. Then, cost-sharing (CS), revenue-sharing (RS), and cost sharing–revenue sharing (CS-RS) hybrid contracts are proposed. It is found that when the CS coefficient is in a certain interval, the CS contract can increase the profit of LSI and the smart level of logistics service, but it will decrease the profit of LSP. With the exception that the wholesale price of logistics services will decrease, the equilibrium results under the RS contract and WP contract remain consistent. Only the CS-RS hybrid contract can achieve the perfect coordination of LSSC. In addition, by conducting numerical analysis, we find that the enhancement of the smart effect can encourage LSP to improve the smart level and increase the overall revenue of LSSC. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first study to explore the incentive mechanism between LSI and LSP in the context of logistics service smart transformation. Our findings guide the LSI in implementing an effective contract.
Applications of the blockchain technology in supply chains have attracted extensive attention in both academia and industries. However, little research has investigated the effects of the blockchain technology on firms’ operational strategies. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of the traceability enabled by the blockchain technology on a producer’s decision whether to outsource delivery to a third-party logistics firm. We find that without the blockchain technology, the logistics firm has a moral hazard—an incentive to set the delivery quality at the lowest level even though improving the delivery quality is for free. The traceability enabled by the blockchain technology can resolve the logistics firm’s moral hazard and encourage the producer to improve the production quality. Furthermore, when the delivery is cost-efficient for the producer, the traceability enabled by the blockchain technology motivates the producer to outsource the delivery to the logistics firm; otherwise, the producer’s outsourcing decision is not affected. When quality cost is low, the blockchain technology makes the logistics firm improve its delivery quality significantly and encourages the producer to improve the production quality. When the quality cost is moderate, only under certain conditions, the blockchain technology has effects on both parties’ decisions.
Ravi Sridharan, Linda Joseph, Thangakumar Jeyaprakash, Sriram Likith Kumar · 5 authors
Humans' primary source of nutrition is food. Consuming a high-quality product is important in everyone's life and also food is essential to our survival. Traditional approaches do not provide consumers with the capacity to trace what they consume. The process can be made transparent from starting to end by utilizing the Blockchain technology. With the integration of blockchain technology, supply chain can provide consumers with advanced traceability and trus t in the final product. Recently, Ethereum is emerging as a peer-to-peer, decentralized blockchain platform with smart contract functionality. The major purpos e of this res earch study is to encourage the farmers to utilize microfinance in order to invest in their crops and to encourage farmers to utilize the capital offered by them without incurring debt. By verifying all prior production, an inves tment offer will be created for the farmers' crop.
Abstract In the current environment, where the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of the incumbent paper-based trade and supply chain finance systems, digital transformation pledges to alleviate the friction on international trade. Here, we provide a timely review of state-of-the-art industry applications and theoretical perspectives on the use of blockchain as the medium toward digitalisation for supply chain finance systems. We argue that blockchain technology has an innovation promoting role in supply chain finance solutions through reducing inefficiencies and increasing visibility between different parties, which have hitherto constituted the main challenges in this sphere. Based on a review of the academic literature as well as an analysis of the industrial solutions that have emerged, we identify and discuss the financial, operational and legal challenges encountered in supply chain financing and the promise of blockchain to address these limitations. We discuss the bottlenecks as well as the benefits of blockchain and identify some necessary conditions required for the emergence of blockchain-enabled trade and supply chain financing, such as the establishment of co-opetition among supply chain actors, integration with IoT systems for data quality, and reform of regulatory and legal frameworks. We conclude by identifying promising research directions about the implementation process, inviting further research into the transformation of business models toward a more collaborative nature.
In this paper, we offer a blockchain-based approach for efficient product tracing in the pharmaceutical supply chain that uses smart contracts and decentralized storage. The smart contract ensures data provenance, eliminates the need for mediators, and provides all participants with a safe, immutable transaction history. We provide the smart contract system architecture as well as the detailed algorithms that regulate our proposed solution’s operating principles. We test and validate it to see how effective it is at improving traceability in pharmaceutical supply chains.
Purpose Warehouse receipt system (WRS) schemes aim to revitalize the market of cash crops, particularly those of the smallholder farmers. However, the existing government schemes for the smallholder farmers have not been much successful on account of issues related with transparency and trust deficit, thereby limiting farmers' access to credit for their farming activities as channeled via the formal financial institutions. Conceding that blockchain is an emerging technology, this study aims to theoretically posit the potential to optimize WRS in real time to bolster farmers' trust and privacy. Design/methodology/approach The research bases itself on the design science research (DSR) approach. Using the DSR approach backed by the literature review and evolutionary prototyping, a blockchain-based WRS has been advanced in the study. Findings This study provides a design of a digital WRS, which serves as a proof of concept of blockchain technology (BCT) applications in improving transparency in the WRS in the agricultural sector. The findings from this study present the possibility of leveraging blockchain smart contracts to improve the linkages between the WRS stakeholders to promote trust and transparency that would eventually unlock the potentials of WRS schemes. Furthermore, the findings inform decision-makers and practitioners to prioritize the emerging technologies in revamping the classical WRS. Research limitations/implications The study leaves research pointers for implementing BCT in agricultural supply chain and furthering the findings from the present study with an empirical agenda. Originality/value Whilst research on the BCT applications across myriad sectors abounds, research on the BCT applications to address societal needs is conspicuously limited. Furthermore, research on the practical implementation of the BCT in real-world scenarios is few and far between. The present study seeks to plug these gaps by underlining the application and utility of blockchain in WRS. The study makes a significant contribution to the theory and practice of the agrarian supply chain management, specifically the WRS, by invoking design knowledge obtained through an iterative design process besides serving as an edifice for the integration of emerging technologies, notably BCT in the agricultural sector.
This study develops a dual-channel supply chain model composed of a retailer with capital constraints and a supplier with sufficient funds, in which the retailer can apply the trade credit financing (TCF) from the supplier. First of all, this work introduces inconsistent pricing strategy, and investigates the optimal pricing, sales-effort level decisions and profits of the dual-channel members. Then it investigates the impacts of consumer channel preference, free-riding behavior (FRB), TCF interest rate, cross-channel return (CCR) and unit contribution to the supplier of the CCR products on the optimal sales-effort level, optimal pricing decisions and the profits of each member under the decentralized and centralized decisions, respectively. To reduce the conflict between the two channels, this research proposes a supplier-revenue sharing contract to coordinate the members so as to achieve the win-win performance with the global optimal supply chain profit. Furthermore, this study uses numerical analysis to test the feasibility of the model and conduct sensitivity analysis. The further results are concluded as follows. (1) Supplier's revenue-sharing contract can well coordinate the dual-channel supply chain with TCF, and achieve the win-win performance with the inconsistent pricing strategy. (2) Under the centralized decision, the overall supply chain profit will have a significant increase with a higher offline-channel preference proportion. (3) The growth of the free-riding coefficient will reduce the overall supply chain profit under both decentralized and centralized decisions when consumers prefer the offline channel, but will increase the centralized overall profit when consumer prefer the online channel. (4) Under the decentralized decision, the online channel's profit will go up and the offline channel's profit will go down when the TCF interest rate increase. (5) Under the decentralized decision, the overall supply chain profit can achieve the maximum by setting a lower unit contribution to the supplier of the CCR products if consumers prefer CCR service. Finally, this work indicates some managerial implications, and proposes some issues for future research.
This paper is aimed at studying the factors influencing the implementation of blockchain in supply chain management to solve the current issues faced in the supply chain ecosystem. Supply chains are part and parcel of every business and have multiple inefficiencies in the system. Some of these inefficiencies can be managed by usage of blockchain Platform .Technology, intracompany synergies, intercompany collaboration, extrinsic factors, and innovation are critically evaluated for adoption of blockchain in supply chain. A pilot study is conducted in form survey for analysis of these factors. Hypotheses are derived for these factors for quantitative research. Subsequently these hypotheses are examined with the help of ADANCO2.3 for structural equation modelling. As an outcome, it is evident that Innovation and Extrinsic factors are significantly impacting the adoption of blockchain in supply chain management.
The Supply Chain Scheduling (SCS) decision making is a challenging task under the blockchain environment because the supply chain is composed of multi-players in all layers. To utilise the information sharing by multiplayers with equal rights in all layers to maximise the supply chain’s utility for reducing the carbon emission, this study proposed a three-echelon supply chain integrated scheduling model that considers the production capacity and multi-product with different delivery time factors. The objective is to minimise the total cost incurred in production and transportation under the blockchain environment. To cope with the complexity arising from multiplayers with equal rights in all layers, a metaheuristic based sequential brain storm optimisation (SBSO) algorithm with a novel encoding scheme and the hybrid crossover and mutation strategy is proposed to enhance the performance. A case study comparing the proposed decision-making framework with the artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) and the backtracking search algorithm (BSA) is conducted, and results show the superiority of the proposed framework. With the help of the proposed SCS decision-making framework, not only can the SCS decision be made, but also the low efficient nodes within the supply chain under the blockchain environment can be identified for potential sustainable upgrading.