Simon Wong, John-Kun-Woon Yeung, Yui‐yip Lau, Joseph C. H. So
Knowing the challenges of keeping and manipulating more and more immutable transaction records in a blockchain network of various supply chain parties and the opportunities of leveraging sophisticated analyses on the big data generated from these records, design of a robust blockchain architecture based on a cloud infrastructure is proposed. This paper presents this technical design with consideration of the technical sustainability in terms of scalability and big data processing and analytics. A case study was used to illustrate how the technical sustainability is achieved by applying the proposed technical design to the real-time detection of the maritime risk management. This case also illustrates how machine learning mechanism helps to reduce maritime risk by guiding a cargo ship to adjust to the planned or safe route from a detour to a danger zone. This paper also discusses the implications for further research direction.
Beatriz Abdul‐Jalbar, Roberto Dorta‐Guerra, José M. Gutiérrez, Joaquı́n Sicilia
Trade credit is a crucial source of capital particularly for small businesses with limited financing opportunities. Inventory models considering trade credit financing have been widely studied. However, while there is extensive research on the single-vendor single-buyer inventory model allowing delays in payments, the systems where the vendor supplies to more than one buyer have received less attention. In this paper, we analyze a two-echelon inventory system where a single vendor supplies an item to two buyers who face a constant deterministic demand. The vendor produces the items at a finite rate and offers the buyers a delay payment period. That is, the buyers can delay the payment for the purchased items until the end of the credit period. Therefore, during such a period, the buyers sell the items and use the sales revenue to earn interest. At the end of the credit period, the buyers should pay the purchasing cost to the vendor for which external funding may be necessary. It is widely accepted that, in general, centralized policies reduce the total cost of the supply chain. Therefore, we first deal with an integrated model assuming that the vendor and the buyers make decisions jointly. However, in some cases, the buyers are not willing to collaborate, and the management of the supply chain has to be carried out in a decentralized manner. Hence, we also address the problem under a non-cooperative setting. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate both models. Additionally, we perform a computational experiment to compare both strategies, and a sensitivity analysis of the parameters is also carried out. From the results, we derived that, in general, it was more profitable to follow the integrated policy excepting when the replenishment costs for the buyers were high. Finally, in order to validate the computational results, a statistical analysis is performed.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to formulate strategic interventions that can contribute to adoption of blockchain in Asian health market. Design/methodology/approach A methodological framework based on the three qualitative phases of the systems thinking and modelling methodology, namely, problem structuring, causal loop modelling and developing strategic interventions were used. Data was collected using thirty interviews and secondary research. Findings The reference model developed in the study captured the system behavior, showing health market blockchain adoption increasing in other countries but struggling in Asia. The qualitative systems model developed explained this behavior by capturing the underlying system structure using six interconnected feedback loops. Three strategic interventions were formulated to change the system structure to improve its adoption. Research limitations/implications This study acknowledges its limitation that blockchain integration in health supply chain management (SCM) and adaptability to technological trends are just few elements that contributes to challenges in blockchain adoption in Asia Pacific health market . It also acknowledges the limited scale of this study using 30 interviews with a narrow set of stakeholders, limiting its generalisability. Practical implications Although the blockchain technology has medical data security benefits, its integration in health SCM could potentially improve cost of health service delivery to patient. Not only it prevents drug counterfeiting, it enhances patient’s safety by reducing the time it takes to alert the supply chain of a product recall from few days to few seconds. Social implications “Blockchain-as-a-Service” has wide applications in SCM, identity management, payments, smart contracts, governance risk and compliance management, with its market size expected to grow in future. This affordable solution opens up the roads for future empirical research for information systems academicians and information technology practitioners. Originality/value This research provides a holistic analysis of the challenges facing blockchain adoption in the health market for Asia. It offers a methodological approach based on systems thinking and modelling to improve its adoption.
Proof-of-Stake blockchains based on a longest-chain consensus protocol are an attractive energy-friendly alternative to the Proof-of-Work paradigm. However, formal barriers to "getting the incentives right" were recently discovered, driven by the desire to use the blockchain itself as a source of pseudorandomness \cite{brown2019formal}. We consider instead a longest-chain Proof-of-Stake protocol with perfect, trusted, external randomness (e.g. a randomness beacon). We produce two main results. First, we show that a strategic miner can strictly outperform an honest miner with just $32.5\%$ of the total stake. Note that a miner of this size {\em cannot} outperform an honest miner in the Proof-of-Work model. This establishes that even with access to a perfect randomness beacon, incentives in Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake longest-chain protocols are fundamentally different. Second, we prove that a strategic miner cannot outperform an honest miner with $30.8\%$ of the total stake. This means that, while not quite as secure as the Proof-of-Work regime, desirable incentive properties of Proof-of-Work longest-chain protocols can be approximately recovered via Proof-of-Stake with a perfect randomness beacon. The space of possible strategies in a Proof-of-Stake mining game is {\em significantly} richer than in a Proof-of-Work game. Our main technical contribution is a characterization of potentially optimal strategies for a strategic miner, and in particular, a proof that the corresponding infinite-state MDP admits an optimal strategy that is positive recurrent.
Globalization, digitalization and disruptions recently driven by the Covid19 pandemic are affecting today's supply chains and thus are challenging companies in maintaining their businesses. Resulting uncertainties lead to potential over- and undercapacities and therefore to economic inefficiencies in companies. Engaging in intercompany networks can be a way to circumvent inefficiencies by sharing resources via electronic markets. Here, negotiation mechanisms can be used to allocate the exchanged goods tailored to the needs and payment conditions of the network participants. Ensuring trust and enabling cooperation between the participants in such a virtual ecosystem is a major challenge and essential for raising its potentials. Lacks of trust within the single transaction phases impede the negotiation process and in worst case the maintaining of the network. For this reason, Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) and their inherent consensus-building functionalities as well as abilities to utilize smart contracts deserve closer investigation. The aim of this paper is to provide a literature review of DLT functionalities coping with behavioral uncertainties, with a closer view on the context of supply chain. The paper examines, to what extend the integration of DLT provides a beneficial contribution to solving trust problems occurring in intercompany negotiations.
Blockchain technology has received wide attention during recent years, and has huge potential to transform and improve supply chain management. However, its implementation in the SSCM (Sustainable Supply Chain Management) strategy is sophisticated, and the challenges are not explored very well, especially in the Moroccan context. To this end, the chief objective of the current endeavor is to investigate the barriers that hinder the adoption of blockchain technology in SSCM from the Moroccan industry and service sectors’ perspective. Based on a comprehensive literature search and the use of experts’ viewpoints, the barriers affecting the successful implementation of blockchain are classified into three categories called TEO: technological and system, environmental, and intra-organizational dimensions. In this context, a fuzzy group decision-making framework is organized by combining DEMATEL (Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory) and IFAHP (Intuitionistic Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process). The IFAHP technique helps to determine the importance/priorities of barriers affecting blockchain adoption, while the DEMATEL technique forms the cause–effect interconnections between these barriers and classifies them concerning the degree of importance and relationships. The results reveal that ‘government policy and support’ and ‘challenges in integrating sustainable practices and blockchain technology through SCM’ are significant adoption barriers of blockchain in Moroccan SSCM. The proposed solution can support industrial decision makers to form flexible short- and long-term decision-making strategies to efficiently manage a sustainable supply chain.
Koppiahraj Karuppiah, Bathrinath Sankaranarayanan, Syed Mithun Ali
Blockchain, emerging technology, has immense potential to transform supply chain activities. Though blockchain offers more benefits, industries face many challenges in blockchain adoption. This paper aims to develop a framework to identify and evaluate various challenges in adopting blockchain in supply chain management. First, 40 prominent challenges to blockchain adoption were identified using the fuzzy Delphi technique. The challenges were then assessed using an integrated methodology that included the grey-decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) and the weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) method. Case studies of five leather garment manufacturing companies were conducted to test this integrated strategy. To ensure the proposed framework's robustness and viability, a sensitivity analysis was performed. Results indicate lack of knowledge about blockchain technology, non-existence of universal regulatory binding, new organisational policies, reputation-based attack, and vulnerable to cyber-attack as the top five challenges faced by the leather garment manufacturing companies. This study imparts the knowledge, significance and challenges in adopting blockchain technology in supply chain management. The outcome of this study provides structural assistance to the managers by exposing the causeand-effect group challenges in blockchain adoption. By understanding the cause and effect relationship among the challenges, industrial practitioners may devise adequate strategies.
In current times, supply chains are gaining momentum because of customers’ many requirements, such as more flexibility, velocity, information, and traceability of products. Several factors can explain this phenomenon: the acceleration of technological innovations, which allow for better performance of systems and processes; globalisation of trade, fostering faster access to products for customers; and environmental responsibility, which drives customers to inquire about the sustainability of their purchases. In this scenario, the disruptive technology of ‘blockchain’ could be a solution to meeting these challenges. This system is characterised by high safety and traceability, and is becoming revolutionary in supply chains, which could have a substantial impact on companies. This exploratory study aims to investigate the current existing research on blockchain applied to supply chains and the main drivers and obstacles that companies face in implementing this technology. Interviews were conducted with ten companies to understand the motivations and risks of embracing this technology. The results show traceability and communication to be the main incentives for its deployment, while interoperability represents its main obstacle.
Blockchain is a ground-breaking technology that is transforming supply chain management. This study aims to empirically investigate the impacts of blockchain technology on consumer behavior. We conduct this research in collaboration with a Chinese e-commerce company that has introduced a blockchain platform for tracing. We use a multimethod design by combining natural experiment- and case study methods. First, we collected data from four industries (i.e. milk powder, seafood, alcohol and nutrition) to conduct the experiment, and the findings reveal that the firms that adopted the blockchain tracing system have an increase in product sales and a decrease in product returns compared to those that did not. Second, we conducted a multiple case study with four cases from the four industries. The findings reveal that the adoption of a blockchain tracing system improves supply chain transparency and process management, which then enhances consumer service and trust. This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence that adopting blockchain technology can improve firms’ marketing performance. The findings also reveal how the adoption of blockchain technology affects consumer behavior.
Abstract The study investigates the relationship between the information and communication-enabled supply chain integration (SCI) and sustainable supply chain performance (SSCP). Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is no empirical evidence on the impact of blockchain technologies (BT) on the SSCP. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to assess the relationship between BT and SSCP. More specifically, the study was conducted to examine the direct influence of BT on SCI and SSCP and the interactive effect of BT and SCI on SSCP. Based on the dynamic capability theoretical lens, the present study conceptualizes the use of BT as a specific IT resource to collaborate and reconfigure the ties with the upstream and downstream supply chain members to achieve SSCP. The results of the study support the hypothesis stating that BT positively influences the SSCP. The results recognize the role of SCI as a significant mediating variable between the BT and SSCP. The result indicates the strong influence of SCI with full mediation effect on the relationship between the BT and SSCP.
The most successful applications of Blockchain Technology are still in the area of crypto-currencies, although both scientists and practitioners have discovered the potential of Blockchain Technology in Supply Chain Management. There is a significant theoretical literature on Blockchain Technology, but there exists a lack of published case studies and concrete examples. This paper discusses whether this shortcoming is due to insufficient added value of the technology and identifies other possible reasons. Furthermore, this paper introduces Blockchain Technology, describes the origins of Bitcoin, the structure and core properties of the Blockchain, and examines smart contracts. A comprehensive and structured literature analysis identifies concepts for the use of Blockchain Technology in logistics in terms of economic benefits. Additionally, a cluster analysis regarding the topics of the relevant literature was conducted. One finding of the study is that Blockchain Technology is particularly worthwhile for goods with a high value. Moreover, if the trade volume of the respective goods is low, the advantages of BCT are maximized. At the same time, the demand for transparency and immutability of data must be more important than the protection of sensitive data. In addition to concrete use cases of Blockchains, an exemplary logistics process will be presented within the Luxury Supply Chain, showing the advantages of Blockchain Technology for each individual process step.
Bitcoin is currently the cryptocurrency with the largest market share. Many previous studies have explored the security of Bitcoin from the perspective of blockchain mining. Especially on the double-spending attacks (DSA), some state-of-the-art studies have proposed various analytical models, aiming to understand the insights behind the double-spending attacks. However, we believe that advanced versions of DSA can be developed to create new threats for the Bitcoin ecosystem. To this end, this paper mainly presents a new type of double-spending attack named Adaptive DSA in the context of the Bitcoin blockchain, and discloses the associated insights. In our analytical model, the double-spending attack is converted into a Markov Decision Process. We then exploit the Stochastic Dynamic Programming (SDP) approach to obtain the optimal attack strategies towards Adaptive DSA. Through the proposed analytical model and the disclosed insights behind Adaptive DSA, we aim to alert the Bitcoin ecosystem that the threat of double-spending attacks is still at a dangerous level.
Elodie de Boissieu, Galina Kondrateva, Patricia Baudier, Chantal Ammi
Purpose Most businesses strive to control the efficiency of their supply chains; however, luxury firms face additional challenges from counterfeit, gray market and copycat products. Blockchain technology can address these issues and enhance firms' supply chain management, guaranteeing the traceability and origin of luxury products. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the utility and contexts influencing the implementation of blockchain technology to optimize supply chain management and prevent fraud in the luxury industry. Design/methodology/approach The research uses a qualitative approach based on the grounded theory method. Data are collected by semi-structured interviews with 12 stakeholders working on blockchain applications in the luxury business sector. Findings Highlighting the problems faced by luxury brands' supply chains, this study presents blockchain technology as a solution for disintermediation, traceability and transparency in the luxury goods sector. The constraints faced by luxury brands incorporating this technology into their ecosystem include the knowledge gap, the multiplicity of third parties involved in the production process and bias toward short-term returns on investment. Originality/value Blockchains promote greater transparency and efficiency within supply chains, which builds consumer trust and improves brand revenue. Considering luxury brands' reluctance to adopt blockchains, this study suggests that luxury firms adopt a staggered implementation of private blockchain networks starting with a small number of third-party suppliers.
In the global trucking industry, vertical collaboration between shippers and carriers is attained by intermediaries, called brokers. Brokers organize carriers for a shipper in accordance with its quality and price requirements, and support carriers to collaborate horizontally by sharing a large distribution order from a shipper. Brokers also act as trustees, preventing the passing of private information of any party to the others. Despite these benefits, intermediaries in the trucking industry are involved in several sustainability problems, including high costs, high levels of carbon emissions, high percentages of empty miles, low-capacity utilizations, and driver shortages. Several studies have acknowledged the importance of improving collaboration to address these problems. Obviously, the major concern of brokers is not collaboration, but rather to optimize their own gains. This paper investigates the potential of blockchain technology to improve collaboration in the trucking industry, by eliminating brokers while preserving their responsibilities as organizers and trustees. This paper extends the transportation control tower concept from the logistics literature, and presents a system architecture for its implementation through smart contracts on a blockchain network. In the proposed system, the scalability and privacy of trucking operations are ensured through integration with privacy-preserving off-chain computation and storage solutions (running outside of the blockchain). The potential of this design artifact for fostering collaboration in the trucking industry was evaluated by both blockchain technology experts and trucking industry professionals.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to gain insights and explicate how blockchain technology enables trust and traceability building from a real business use case. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a qualitative case study of a leading global French grocery retail firm that has started to integrate blockchain into their supply chain and products. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and secondary data sources. Findings This paper developed a conceptual framework in unboxing the mechanism by which blockchain enables trust and explicating how information flows in a blockchain-based system compared to a traditional one in a real business application scenario through three main elements, namely, system architecture, data recovery and communication. Originality/value Given the upside potential of emerging technologies such as blockchain coupled with the current increasing demand for business use cases, the paper is timely in integrating the business and technological aspects of trust in formulating a firm-level blockchain strategy.
Manuel M. T. Chakravarty, Nikos Karayannidis, Aggelos Kiayias, Michael Peyton Jones · 5 authors
Custom currencies (ERC-20) on Ethereum are wildly popular, but they are second class to the primary currency Ether. Custom currencies are more complex and more expensive to handle than the primary currency as their accounting is not natively performed by the underlying ledger, but instead in user-defined contract code. Furthermore, and quite importantly, transaction fees can only be paid in Ether. In this paper, we focus on being able to pay transaction fees in custom currencies. We achieve this by way of a mechanism permitting short term liabilities to pay transaction fees in conjunction with offers of custom currencies to compensate for those liabilities. This enables block producers to accept custom currencies in exchange for settling liabilities of transactions that they process. We present formal ledger rules to handle liabilities together with the concept of babel fees to pay transaction fees in custom currencies. We also discuss how clients can determine what fees they have to pay, and we present a solution to the knapsack problem variant that block producers have to solve in the presence of babel fees to optimise their profits.
Abstract Blockchain technology plays a very positive role in promoting the development of the port supply chain. Although there are some practical examples of blockchain in the port supply chain (eg. Trade Len or Cargo Smart), there are few application scenarios. Therefore, blockchain technology has yet to be widely used in the port industry. This may be related to the construction of blockchain. This paper analyzes the impact of blockchain technology on the port supply chain and the technology sharing on the shipping market. It is found that the investment of blockchain technology in a competitive environment has different characteristics. When the efficiency of technology investment and the proportion of market expansion reach a certain combination, there are two different equilibrium strategy choices: Only technology investment or technology sharing. Based on the above research results, this paper further investigates the results of the comprehensive influence of different factors such as competition intensity and market expansion proportion.
In order to address the inconvenience and opaqueness issues existing in the scenario of ordering resources for manufacturing companies, in this paper, we design a supply chain resource management system based on the blockchain technology. A deserving resource smart contract (DRSC) and a punishment smart contract (PSC) are developed to deal with the environment of transactions, and a resource allocation method is proposed to obtain an optimal strategy. Finally, simulation is carried out to verify the feasibility of the designed system and illustrate a final allocation strategy maximizing the overall profits.
As a disruptive tool, blockchain technology can eradicate the product-counterfeiting problem in supply chains. However, a blockchain-supported platform charges an operating fee to legitimate manufacturers and retailers for product traceability and authentication. In this study, we employ enterprise profit-driven analytical models using Stackelberg equilibrium theory and highlight the values of blockchain-supported e-commerce platforms in addressing the product-counterfeiting problem. To measure the actual benefits of blockchain technology, we compare the profits of all agents in two different supply chains, traditional and blockchain-supported. Results show that the application of blockchain technology is not always beneficial to manufacturers, retailers, and customers. However, when the manufacturing cost of a legitimate manufacturer is sufficiently high, the manufacturer generates more profits using blockchain technology. Further, for a price-sensitive market, a retailer tends to trade in a blockchain-supported e-commerce platform if the retailer’s qualification in the platform is lower than that in a traditional supply chain, and the manufacturing cost of the counterfeit manufacturer in the platform is higher than that in a traditional supply chain.
As an essential carrier of cross-border trade, the maritime supply chain has always been plagued by long service cycles, complex structures, and heterogeneous information from multiple sources. In this context, as a distributed database system, the emerging blockchain technology has the characteristics of decentralization, tamper-proofness, and traceability, which can be correctly applied in the maritime industry to promote its transformation and upgrading. However, blockchain application in the maritime supply chain remains notably absent, leaving this critical topic almost unexplored. Thus, we first conduct a comprehensive literature review and an industrial investigation to clarify the current status, problems, and challenges of the blockchain-based maritime supply chain system (BMSCS). We construct a new operation management mode of the maritime supply chain and propose an integrated BMSCS suitable for global economic development. Finally, based on comparison of the current research results, reasonable suggestions for the future operation and development of the BMSCS are put forward to enhance the coordination among members, accelerate the application of blockchain in the maritime industry, and gradually realise the intelligent operation of the maritime supply chain.
The risk of supply chain disruption is usually related to daily disturbances in supply chain operations (e.g., demand fluctuations) and some emergency risks, such as earthquakes and epidemic outbreaks. During a crisis, companies need agility to quickly find new suppliers and open auxiliary sales channels to meet customer needs and remain competitive. However, identifying “event” is one of the most difficult challenges of current decision support systems. If the system encounters an emergency, it is usually unable to promptly notify users of the warning to avoid risks. A sensible solution is to incorporate the real-time event-monitoring system into SCM (i.e., supply chain management) in order to share emergency information in the early stage for preemptive management in the supply chain. On the other hand, in order to process confidential supply chain data with other members, the SCM infrastructure requires secure data sharing. The blockchain-based SCM system can improve the transparency of traceability to ensure that the supply chain system provides high-quality products and protects data privacy and security. The view is taken; therefore, in this work, we combined a method of real-time event detection using collected Twitter data and blockchain technology for event monitoring to improve the visibility of the supply chain system and take preemptive measures for risk avoidance. The experiments show some interesting results and potentials for future work in the field of the agile supply chain.