Purpose Blockchain technology was developed to synchronize the data and transactions over the supply chain network and connected nodes. This paper aims to show how blockchain technology can enhance flexibility and agility in supply chain operations. The integration of blockchain and other recently developed technology can help deal with supply chain uncertainties and other challenges being faced by the industry. Design/methodology/approach Through an extensive literature review of existing research papers and conversation with supply chain managers, barriers and challenges in the supply chain were identified. Some elements were researched of blockchain technology that can be used to resolve some challenges. Blockchain technology and other technologies integration is developed for implementation in supply chain for better visibility and efficiency of supply chain. Findings The challenges in the supply chain are categorized, and the solution is given through the integration of blockchain and other technologies like Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. The integration shows the execution of tasks through blockchain and various technologies in supply chain. Research limitations/implications Blockchain in supply chain is finding its strong place in India when compared to developing nations. There is a need for technology experts, supply chain managers and consumers to understand blockchain’s importance. Challenges faced by industries to use blockchain may be analyzed further with real-life industry case studies. Practical implications This research helps enterprises in successful execution of smart technologies in their supply chains. This research helps enterprises in successful execution of smart technologies in their supply chains. Managers and practitioners may use the models developed in real-time implementation. The technologies are described in detail to help the practitioners select the best suitable for their organization. Social implications Digital supply chains are finding the way in industries due to lean and efficient nature. It is beneficial to use the smart technologies to make supply chain green and sustainable. Originality/value The implementation of the digital supply chain and its challenges are discussed in the research paper. This will work as a platform for research in the area of technologies for supply chain.
This paper proposes a multi-layer integrated IoT-blockchain conceptual architecture to solve the issues of the traditional bill of ladings, namely double-spending, duplicated documents, masqueraded information, and fraud and hacking threads related to the complexity of traditional format and fragmented supply chain activities. We formulate the tasks and functions of each IoT-blockchain layer and illustrates how the proposed conceptual architecture can overcome several inefficiency and security issues in the status quo. The proposed conceptual architecture can link IoT and blockchain technologies with port community systems’ practices to reduce potential risks behind issuing the bill of lading.
Banks attempt to invest in emerging financial technology (FinTech), such as blockchain, to enhance competitiveness. There is a great deal of literature on the technical and legal aspects of blockchain. However, there is little specific guidance on how banks can apply a holistic model to evaluate the blockchain-based business. This study proposes a hybrid decision model with confidence-weighted fuzzy assessments to address this valuable research topic. Supported by a group of seasoned experts, five major blockchain-based business models are evaluated for a domestic bank in Taiwan. The key findings contribute to understanding the importance of the involved factors and identifying the ideal business strategy for the bank. The result suggests that the most crucial dimension is policies and regulations, not the technical capability of banks.
With respect to a two-echelon supply chain which comprised of a core manufacturer and a capital-constrained supplier, this paper analyzed the effect of government subsidy to the accounts receivable financing in the context of third-party partial guarantee. Based on the decentralized decision-making model without and with government subsidy, from the perspective of promoting the guarantee coefficient of the third-party guarantee, this paper studied how government subsidy impacts the supply chain coordination. The results show that government subsidy can reduce financing risks and costs, but not the bigger the better. Supplier's profit, manufacturer's profit and whole supply chain profit Pareto is also improved. In the range of a reasonable government subsidy coefficient, the higher government subsidy coefficient, the higher supply chain financing efficiency and supply chain coordination. Finally, this paper conducts some numerical experiments to verify the results.
Purpose Blockchain technology offers a lot of potential benefits in supply chain management. However, there is a need of a reference model which addresses the gaps in existing frameworks. This paper aims to propose a blockchain technology-based reference model which can be applied to global logistics operations. Design/methodology/approach The researchers have integrated the fit-for-purpose theoretical framework and prototyping methodology to design the reference model, a blockchain-based logistics, tracking and traceability system (BLTTS). The researchers demonstrated the application of the reference model through a health-care supply chain case study. The proposed BLTTS can be implemented across global logistics operations for business performance improvement. Findings The research provides a framework and recommendations for global companies to consider when adopting the blockchain technology for implementation. The researchers found that the Ethereum blockchain technology improves security of the data shared within the block through the secure hashing algorithm 1. The hash algorithm ensures anonymity of the involved parties. The model integrates blockchain with supply chain thus creating transparent process, efficiency and real-time communication. Research limitations/implications The reference model will offer a better solution to global logistics operations challenges. It provides recommendations to key stakeholders involved in logistics operations segment of the logistics industry while adopting blockchain technology. Apart from the methodological limitation of the study, the system compatibility and the layer configuration aspects might be posing potential challenges while upscaling the implementation. Originality/value The proposed reference model overcomes the drawbacks of existing models as it integrates Ethereum technology. In addition, the researchers have applied the model to demonstrate its functioning in real-time environment, which could guide for future research.
The phenomenon of copycats is common in a wide range of industries. Recently, to indicate product authenticity and combat copycats, many brand name companies (BNCs) have started selling products through retailers. These BNCs deploy a scalable protocol that is integrated into a permissioned blockchain technology (PBT) platform. We examine how PBT combats copycats in the supply chain and how it benefits BNCs. Although PBT implementation helps novice customers identify product authenticity and the real quality of products, that is, to take advantage of a quality disclosure effect , we show that, if and only if the number of novice customers is large enough, then selling through a PBT retailer can effectively combat copycats. Thus, PBT increases the profit of the BNC, consumer surplus, social welfare, and reduces the profit of a copycat. Moreover, conventional wisdom tells us that PBT ensures supply chain transparency and motivates a firm to improve its product quality. However, the BNC reduces the quality of its products when using PBT, because an improvement in product quality is not profitable if consumers can distinguish between genuine and imitation products. Furthermore, we extend the model by considering the case where the BNC itself implements PBT. Without the double marginalization effect , even if the number of novice customers is small, blockchain technology may exist in the market (the BNC self‐implements). In addition, if the unit production cost of a genuine product is large enough, social welfare increases when production cost increases.
The traditional oil supply chain suffers from various shortcomings regarding crude oil extraction, processing, distribution, environmental pollution, and traceability. It offers an only a forward flow of products with almost no security and tracking process. In time, the system will lag behind due to the limitations in quality inspection, fraudulent information, and monopolistic behavior of supply chain entities. Inclusion of counterfeiting products and opaqueness of the system urge renovation in this sector. The recent evolution of Industry 4.0 leads to the alternation in the supply chain introducing the smart supply chain. Technological advancement can now reshape the infrastructure of the supply chain for the future. In this paper, we suggest a conceptual framework utilizing Blockchain and Smart Contract to monitor the overall oil supply chain. Blockchain is a groundbreaking technology to monitor and support the security building of a decentralized type supply chain over a peer-to-peer network. The use of the Internet of Things (IoT), especially sensors, opens broader window to track the global supply chain in real-time. We construct a methodology to support reverse traceability for each participant of the supply chain. The functions and characteristics of Blockchain and Smart Contract are defined. Implementation of Smart Contracts has also been shown with detailed analysis. We further describe the challenges of implementing such a system and validate our framework's adaptability in the real world. The paper concludes with future research scope to mitigate the restrictions of data management and maintenance with advanced working prototypes and agile systems achieving greater traceability and transparency.
Пэйдэ Лю, Ayad Hendalianpour, Mohammad Hamzehlou, Mohammad Reza Feylizadeh · 5 authors
Globalization initiated the challenges in Supply Chain (SC) such as management and control. In this situation, Blockchain as a digital distributed ledger can guarantee clarity, tractability, and safety. Many case studies proved that we can use Blockchain Technology (BT) to solve global supply chain problems especially in smart contracts with their potential applications. BT is in its early period and it is hard to find supply chains that have successfully implemented this technology to track their sustainable actions. Therefore, it is worth studying about the role of customers, members, domestic, national, and international challenges that could resist implementing Blockchain and may affect SC sustainability. Accordingly, four categories of barriers to the use of BT are introduced which are inter-organizational, intra-organizational, technical, and external barriers. Then with Bayesian Best Worst Method, we ranked the BT barriers and the sub-barriers. The study illustrates the interconnection of these barriers and the priority of each element. The lack of business models and the best practices in implementing Blockchain technology is a challenge and it is important that practitioners acknowledge these barriers in the first steps.
Offchain networks are dominant as a solution to the scalability problem of blockchain systems, allowing users to perform transactions without their recording on the chain. Offchain networks consist of channels connecting pairs of users with frequent transactions. Transactions between users without a direct channel are also supported through paths of multiple channels but involve payment of fees to intermediate users. A set of pending transactions (the demand) is typically served one by one. This paper proposes a novel approach to reduce the number of offchain transactions and their corresponding fees while preserving the requested impact on user accounts, by performing optimizations directly on the demand matrix. We contribute an analytical characterization of the properties of such offchain payments demand matrix optimizations, present efficient algorithms and report on an empirical evaluation, demonstrating the simplicity and effectiveness of the approach.
Kotha Raj Kumar Reddy, Angappa Gunasekaran, P. Kalpana, V. Raja Sreedharan · 5 authors
As world is affected by demand volatility; process uncertainty; supply chain complexity and information ambiguity forming a VUCA world. To manage this scenario, industries are adopting emerging technologies for business excellence and one among them is Blockchain. Blockchain technology (BCT) is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) that stores transactional records in a tamper-proof and immutable way; it is a promising solution for incorporating transparency and traceability in traditional ecosystem. As automotive industries are facing a Volatile environment, Uncertain schedules & information; Complex supply chain networks, and Ambiguous decisions that cripples the automotive supply chain (ASC). Therefore, BCT can be used to address issues related to ASC in VUCA world. Keeping this in mind, study reported a systematic literature review (SLR) of BCT applications in ASC. More than seventy research papers were reviewed based on different BCT characteristics and applications. Through content analysis, study explored how to link supply chain visibility, information transparency with BCT for an efficient ASC in VUCA world. Moreover, a BCT implementation framework is proposed for ASC, to provide a decision-making approach for practitioners in VUCA world.
Blockchain like Bitcoin and Ethereum suffer from scalability issues. Sharding is one of the most promising and leading solutions to scale blockchain. The basic idea behind sharding is to divide the blockchain network into multiple committees, where each processing a separate set of transactions, rather than the entire network processes all transactions. In this paper, we propose a probabilistic approach to analyze the security of sharding-based blockchain protocols. Based on this approach, we investigate the threat of Sybil attacks in these protocols. The key contribution of our paper is a tractable probabilistic approach to accurately compute the failure probability that at least one committee fails and ultimately compute the probability of a successful attack. To show the effectiveness of our approach, we conduct a numerical and comparative analysis of the proposed approach with existing approaches.
This work assesses the impact of blockchain and smart contract on the visibility of construction supply chain and in the context of payments (intersection of cash and product flows). It uses comparative empirical experiments (Charrette Test Method) to draw comparisons between the visibility of state-of-practice and blockchain-enabled payment systems in a commercial construction project. Comparisons were drawn across four levels of granularity. The findings are twofold: 1) blockchain improved information completeness and information accuracy respectively by an average 216% and 261% compared with the digital state-of-practice solution. The improvements were significantly more pronounced for inquiries that had higher product, trade, and temporal granularity; 2) blockchain-enabled solution was robust in the face of increased granularity, while the conventional solution experienced 50% and 66.7% decline respectively in completeness and accuracy of information. The paper concludes with a discussion of mechanisms contributing to visibility and technology adoption based on business objectives.
The supply chain of shipping logistics services is an important branch of logistics service supply chain. To ensure the effective operation of the supply chain and to solve problems such as asymmetric information, difficult data quality assurance, and uncontrollable transportation in shipping logistics services, blockchain technology are proposed to reduce information interaction problems. In view of the factors of information sharing and customers’ sensitivity to information quality, a tripartite evolutionary game model with the shipping company, the port and the freight forwarder as the research objects was established, and the cooperative decision making of node companies was discussed before and after the application of blockchain technology. Theoretical derivation and data analysis show that ports and freight forwarder in the supply chain of shipping logistics services dominated by shipping companies are less affected by information sharing and customers’ sensitivity to information quality. With the increase in the application of blockchain technology, when customers have lower expectations for information quality, shipping companies are more willing to cooperate actively. The willingness to cooperate actively between ports and shipping companies is increasing faster than when blockchain technology is not used. Therefore, shipping companies should encourage the active use of blockchain technology to reduce the degree of information sharing between ports and freight forwarder and the influences of customer expectations on shipping companies.
Blockchain like Bitcoin and Ethereum suffer from scalability issues. Sharding\nis one of the most promising and leading solutions to scale blockchain. The\nbasic idea behind sharding is to divide the blockchain network into multiple\ncommittees, where each processing a separate set of transactions, rather than\nthe entire network processes all transactions. In this paper, we propose a\nprobabilistic approach to analyze the security of sharding-based blockchain\nprotocols. Based on this approach, we investigate the threat of Sybil attacks\nin these protocols. The key contribution of our paper is a tractable\nprobabilistic approach to accurately compute the failure probability that at\nleast one committee fails and ultimately compute the probability of a\nsuccessful attack. To show the effectiveness of our approach, we conduct a\nnumerical and comparative analysis of the proposed approach with existing\napproaches.\n
This research focuses on analyzing the state of the art of the blockchain technology and in publicizing the potential applications and implementations that the blockchain can deliver to the supply chain. For this, it will be explained in a simple way technology and its operation in the supply chain and case studies of real companies that are currently betting on this technological revolution, capable of improving the efficiency of any process logistic.
Soohyun Cho, Kyungha Lee, Arion Cheong, Won Gyun No · 5 authors
Blockchain technology can benefit inter-organizational activities by improving data integrity, increasing transaction transparency, and decreasing transaction costs. In this paper, we discuss the strategic and economic value of this technology by applying it to the value-added tax (VAT) reporting system, focusing on blockchain’s characteristic traceability. By effectively increasing financial transparency, the application of blockchain to the VAT system can prevent VAT-related fraud (e.g., underreported VAT) that can arise due to the information asymmetry that exists at different stages of the supply chain. We develop a game theoretical model that involves a retailer and two vendors in order to study the players’ strategic decisions regarding blockchain adoption and to examine the effects on social welfare. We also show how the decision to adopt blockchain depends on considerations such as adoption costs, the vendors’ VAT reporting behavior, the retailer’s profit margins, and inter-vendor competition. Furthermore, we find that under certain conditions, policymakers can increase social welfare by providing subsidies to encourage blockchain adoption.88 Sun Yin, H.H.; Langenheldt, K.; Harlev, M.; Mukkamala, R.R.; and Vatrapu, R. Regulating cryptocurrencies: A supervised machine learning approach to de-anonymizing the bitcoin blockchain. Journal of Management Information Systems, 36, 1 (2019), 37–73.[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]
Frequent problems of counterfeiting have spawned consumer demands to monitor the entire supply chain. The application of blockchain technology with anti-counterfeiting and traceability can improve the reliability and authenticity of product information and eliminate consumer doubts about product quality. Furthermore, based on the transparency of blockchain technology, brand suppliers can independently obtain the market demand information through information sharing. This paper introduces a consumer suspicion coefficient to illustrate the application of blockchain technology in the supply chain. Considering product authenticity verification and information sharing, we study the optimal pricing and product quality decisions in a two-level supply chain under the following three scenarios: (1) no blockchain technology, a traditional supply chain, and no information sharing (case TN); (2) no blockchain technology but a traditional supply chain with information sharing (case TS); and (3) a supply chain based on blockchain technology (case BT). We find that when the consumer suspicion coefficient increases, consumers will have limited faith in the authenticity of the product, which will affect the retailer’s optimal decision and profit. By comparing the equilibrium results of several cases, we also find that demand information sharing by the retailer may not achieve a win-win outcome in a decentralized channel in the absence of blockchain technology. Under demand information sharing based on blockchain technology, however, if the consumer suspicion coefficient exceeds a certain threshold, the brand supplier and retailer can achieve a win–win outcome. In addition, the extended models reveal that in a centralized supply chain, regardless of the state of market demand, blockchain technology can always improve product quality and retail price and optimize supply chain profit.