Intelligent transformation of manufacturers requires smart logistics transformation collaboration, which improves competitiveness. In this study, we construct a Stackelberg game model based on the mutual influence and restriction in the relationship between a manufacturer and a logistics service provider (LSP) undergoing smart logistics transformation. We investigate whether cost-sharing (CS) or revenue-sharing (RS) contracts can coordinate the supply chain and suggest a hybrid CSāRS contract to improve performance. We find that, compared with decentralized options, CS and RS contracts achieve a higher level of smart logistics transformation. While the coordination and effectiveness of CS contracts are superior to those of RS contracts, neither can fully coordinate the supply chain. The proposed hybrid CSāRS contract allows the manufacturer to share the LSPās costs before the transformation and its partial revenue after transformation, so that the LSP can reduce its service charge, thereby achieving full supply chain coordination.
Debi Prasad Mishra, Rasleen K. Kukreja, Arun S. Mishra
Purpose This paper aims to investigate how the emerging blockchain technology can tackle dark side or dysfunctional effects at different stages of the interorganizational relationship life cycle. The rationale for this study stems from the somewhat paradoxical causes of dysfunctional effects. In particular, concepts such as trust and cooperation that typically result in positive relationship outcomes may also lead to negative effects under certain conditions. This contradiction creates a governance headache for organizations in their quest for initiating, developing, maintaining and enhancing efficient interorganizational relationships. Design/methodology/approach The study draws upon multiple organizational theories (agency, signaling, transaction cost, population ecology, institutional) and develops a conceptual understanding of how blockchain can serve as a safeguard for tackling dark side effects in interorganizational relationships. Primarily, the paper outlines a set of research propositions that provides a platform for developing an actionable managerial decision framework. In addition, the authors conduct an automated textual analysis of qualitative blockchain expert opinion using the ALCESTE software and uncover salient themes about blockchain governance. Findings The blockchain ledger distributes trust among participants and keeps dark side effects at bay. Hence, blockchain can transform conventional approaches for handling dark side effects into value creating activities. The results of an automated textual analysis on a corpus of expert opinions provides preliminary support for several aspects of blockchain governance. Furthermore, the study articulates a decision framework that managers can use for optimal relationship governance and identifies several areas for future research. Research limitations/implications This paper is conceptual in nature and draws upon multiple theoretical perspectives to outline a set of research propositions. Thus, lack of empirical testing is a current limitation. However, the findings from an automated textual analysis of expert opinions provide exploratory but encouraging support for the power of blockchain to tackle dark side effects. Practical implications Managers can deploy blockchain creatively while selecting interorganizational relationship partners. For example, provenance issues in organizationsā supply chains can be efficiently managed using blockchain. Likewise, organizations may also create efficient learning around blockchain to gain efficiencies in relationship management. Originality/value Conventional approaches for managing dark side effects in interorganizational relationships rely mainly on ex post governance strategies. By contrast, this paper supplements the extant approach by discussing ex ante strategies that can be deployed at different stages of the interorganizational relationship cycle, e.g. initiation, maintenance/development and termination to better address dark side effects.
Problem definition: The U.S. influenza (flu) vaccine supply chain is decentralized and experiences frequent supply and demand mismatches caused by two key factors: (1) the vaccine production process (yield) is highly uncertain; and (2) individuals are self-interested and do not completely take into account positive and negative externalities that they impose on others. To improve matching of supply and demand, we counteract these factors by developing an ex ante budget-neutral incentive program. Academic/practical relevance: We establish the sources of inefficiency in the flu vaccine supply chain. To eliminate the inefficiency, we develop a two-sided incentive program that policymakers can implement to finance vaccines under an ex ante balanced budget. Methodology: We model the flu vaccine supply chain as a decentralized system consisting of self-interested individuals on the demand side, and a profit-maximizing manufacturer with uncertain yield on the supply side. We use backward induction to characterize the subgame-perfect equilibrium of the sequential game that models the interactions between individuals and the manufacturer. Results: We develop a two-sided incentive program that proposes āvaccination incentivesā to be given to individuals on the demand side, and āa menu of transfer paymentsā between the social planner and manufacturer on the supply side. When the realized vaccine supply is high (or low), our incentive program provides positive (negative) vaccination incentives for individuals to stimulate (or curb) the demand and eliminate positive (or negative) externalities by making vaccination more affordable (or costly). When social benefits from vaccination are significantly high, our incentive program uses a menu of transfer payments to penalize (or subsidize) the manufacturer for low (or high) yield realizations so that it produces the socially optimal quantity. We show that our incentive program can attain the social optimum, maintain an ex ante balanced budget (i.e., budget-neutral in expectation), and distribute the maximum social welfare between individuals and the manufacturer arbitrarily. Managerial implications: Vaccination incentives to individuals can ensure their access to the vaccine, but they are not enough to entice the manufacturer to ensure vaccine availability. A menu of contracts contingent on realized yield provides necessary incentives to the manufacturer and assures the availability.
The supply chain is a thriving industry where numerous parties have different interests. Subsequently, the immense volume of data produced is difficult to audit. Some information can be lost or intentionally distorted in the process. Blockchain as an open, public, borderless, neutral, and censorship-resistant architecture can significantly complement supply chains. A new supply chain architecture is proposed in this work, where the tokenized directed acyclic hypergraph (DAG) represents real-world production processes. An anti-aerosol respirator manufacturing is used as an illustration example. By tokenizing all parts of multi-component products, supply chain data is automatically timestamped and secured. Moreover, the DAG design allows one to trace-back all the elements of the final product to their origin. Blockchain can formally audit the entire supply chain without the need to go from place to place. A single incorruptible operations log creates an enabling environment for an unbiased reputation system to emerge.
The purpose of this research is to examine the green supply chain (GSC) financing decisions of manufacturers and capital-constrained retailers in order to establish a Stackelberg game model under decentralized and centralized decision-making. This paper studies the influence of retailersā choice of trade credit or bank loan financing strategy on a GSCās performance and analyzes their decision-making tendency. The results show that manufacturers should provide trade credit and participate in retailersā financing decisions to avoid double marginal effects under both centralized and decentralized decision-making. Interestingly, the optimal value of green marketing effort and retailer order quantity was twice as high as the decentralized under the centralized decision, indicating that the centralized decision could better improve GSCās financing efficiency. Especially when the trade credit financing strategy is feasible, this effect is more significant. Finally, the outcomes are verified through numerical simulation, which references GSC practitioners in management decisions.
Abstract Service supply chain management is a complex process because of its intangibility, high diversity of services, trustless settings, and uncertain conditions. However, the traditional evaluating models mostly consider the historical performance data and fail to predict and diagnose the problemsā root. This paper proposes a distributed, trustworthy, tamper-proof, and learning framework for evaluating service supply chain performance based on blockchain and adaptive network-based fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) techniques, named Di-ANFIS. The main objectives of this research are as follows: (1) presenting hierarchical criteria of service supply chain performance to cope with the diagnosis of the problemsā root; (2) proposing a smart learning model to deal with the uncertainty conditions by a combination of neural network and fuzzy logic; and (3) introducing a distributed blockchain-based framework due to the dependence of ANFIS on big data and the lack of trust and security in the supply chain. Furthermore, the proposed six-layer conceptual framework consists of the data layer, connection layer, blockchain layer, smart layer, ANFIS layer, and application layer. This architecture creates a performance management system using the Internet of Things, smart contracts, and ANFIS based on the blockchain platform. The Di-ANFIS model provides a performance evaluation system without needing a third party and a reliable intermediary that provides an agile and diagnostic model in a smart and learning process. It also saves computing time and speeds up information flow.
Shipping is an integral part of international trade which facilitates ninety percent of the world's goods and cargo movement transported by sea with over seventy percent as containerized cargo. Freight transport enables economic growth, provides access to markets, connects producers and consumers, determines trade competitiveness, supports effective integration into global supply chains, and contributes to social progress and inclusive development. Around the world, shipping documents are still prepared and processed mainly in old paper style. This result processes happening within shipping ports to be highly paper-dependent and time-consuming. As it involves multiple participants with opposing interests, shipping documents are easily vulnerable to paperwork manipulation. Blockchain technology provides a distributed, shared, and append-only ledger in which new records are added through consensus among participants invoked by smart contracts. This paper is the application of smart contracts in shipping port processes to digitize and automate paperwork filings. Smart contracts are written inspired by the shipping ports processes and deployed into Ganache private blockchain thus incorporating immutable nature, trust, decentralization and privacy of the blockchain into the entire shipment process. Automation will reduce the possible human errors and manipulation, also conserving time resources reducing cost, and improving speed.
Traceability has emerged as a prime requirement for a multi-tier and multi-site production. It enables visibility and caters to the consumer requirements of transparency and quality assurance. Textile and clothing industry is one such example that requires traceability implementation to address prevailing problems of information asymmetry and low visibility. Customers find it difficult to access product data that can facilitate ethical buying practices or assure product authenticity. Besides, it is challenging for stakeholders to share crucial information in an insecure environment with risk of data manipulations and fear of losing information advantage. In this context, this study investigates and proposes a blockchain-based traceability framework for traceability in multi-tier textile and clothing supply chain. It conceptualizes the interaction of supply chain partners, and related network architecture at the organizational level and smart contract and transaction validation rules at the operational level. To illustrate the application of the proposed framework, the study presents an example of organic cotton supply chain using blockchain with customized smart contract and transaction rules. It finally demonstrates the applicability of the developed blockchain by testing it under two parameters. The proposed system can build a technology-based trust among the supply chain partners, where the distributed ledger can be used to store and authenticate supply chain transactions. Further, the blockchain-based traceability system would provide a unique opportunity, flexibility, and authority to all partners to trace-back their supply network and create transparent and sustainable supply chain.
This paper describes a summary of info flows and technology, allowing the supply chain within the automotive industry. The supply base of many motorized manufacturers is being restructured, with great consequence for the way dealers connect with their automotive partners. Electronic data interchange (EDI) is by far the most common communication technique used in automotive manufacturing, though new approaches are used as well. All these methods and how they support the information flows are explained in more detail. Companies attempt to companies are trying to find ways to recover their elasticity and responsiveness and in turn competitiveness by changing their operations plan, methods and skills that include the implementation of Supply Chain Management (SCM) paradigm. Hence, Blockchain can enhance the agility of SCM. However, blockchain's impact on SCM is not equivalent. In this paper, we specify the areas that are blockchain effects on the automotive supply chain and evaluate it.
Mohammed Alkahtani, Qazi Salman Khalid, Muhammad Jalees, Muhammad Omair Ā· 6 authors
The agricultural industry is highly underdeveloped and requires transformation in technology for food safety and reliability. A digital world is relying on blockchain technology for the successful implementation of sustainable e-agricultural supply chain management (e-Agri-SCM). In current advancements of blockchain in digital marketing, product website design (web design) is essential to streamline the requirements of the customer and the expectations of supply chain partners. The current research has incorporated the blockchain effect by web design elements into the agricultural supply chain management (Agri-SCM) study. In addition, partners in the digital marketing supply chain (DM-SCM) are also facing issues to identify significant web design elements-based blockchain technology to gain maximum profit. Therefore, a cooperative (Co-op) sustainable e-agricultural SCM model is developed in this study by considering the web design index and variable demand to decide shipments, selling price, cycle time, and advertisement cost for agriculture products. The uncertainties in the model due to intangible web design elements and basic costs are dealt with by the application of the fuzzy system whereas carbon emission is also considered for providing cleaner production. A real-time application of the proposed model is done by undertaking five different cases based on mutual share, demand curve, and advertisement budget among participants. The sensitivity analysis is also performed to identify important factors of the total profit. Findings of this work include significant web design elements (WDEs) i.e., web graphics, search engine optimization, cyber-security, fast loading, and navigation, as essentials for digital marketing to convince customers towards the product in a global SCM. The numerical results and managerial insights are advantageous for managers to get maximum profit by cooperative and digital marketing strategies to attain e-Agri-SCM.
The demands for the fairness, security, and efficiency of the supply chain have grown significantly due to the rise of globalization. However, some problems of the information flow, logistics, and capital flow in the supply chain remain a challenge, such as the information asymmetry between upstream and downstream, substandard quality of goods, difficulty in traceability, and default of payment. Therefore, this paper proposes a blockchain-based supply chain framework (SESCF), which solves the supply chain problems securely and efficiently. First, the use of blockchain and smart contracts ensures the information symmetry in the supply chain system. Second, the radio frequency identification (RFID) provides a unique identity of goods, which helps in real-time quality monitoring. Additionally, the immutability and distributed storage of the blockchain play an important role in tracking the origin of goods. Third, the efficient payment channel is used to solve the problem of payment defaults. Furthermore, simulations of smart contracts along with the security analyses are presented in this paper. We also implement a blockchain-based supply chain system (SescfDapp), which is built upon a Consortium blockchain. Large-scale experiments and detailed analysis prove the feasibility and efficiency of our proposed system.
Youness Tribis, Abdelali El Bouchti, Houssine Bouayad
Initially developed for Bitcoin cryptocurrency, Blockchain Technology (BCT) is a decentralized transaction managing technology that provides security, anonymity and data integrity in transactions without the need of any trusted third party. The interest in BCT has been grown, as research topic for many fields, such as finance, health, government, agriculture and many particular Supply Chain (SC) industries. However, there is a lack of systematic literature reviews (SLR) on existing research concerning how BCT is well relevant in SC. This paper conducts a systematic review in order to examine all pertinent research on SC based on BCT. The main inspiration for this work was to synthesize existing evidence, classify research tendencies available in the literature, and identify open themes and gaps for development in this discipline. However, 45 primary papers have been extracted from scientific databases. This systematic review provides direction for future research regarding the applications of BCT for SC
Data sharing between upstream and downstream entities is vital for the success of a supply chain. However, distrust, privacy concerns, data misuse, and the asymmetric valuation of shared data between entities often hinder data sharing. This problem calls for a secure, efficient, fair, and trustworthy dataāsharing mechanism. The key to such a successful system hinges on how to trace the data usage, determine the value of the sellerās data to the buyer and then compensate the seller accordingly. To this end, we design and implement a blockchaināenabled dataāsharing marketplace for a stylized supply chain. We demonstrate how a blockchain can be used to overcome these impediments in supplyāchain data sharing and provide a detailed tutorial with a stepābyāstep implementation for how to set up such a data exchange prototype using Hashgraph.
Purpose The paper aims to present a systematic literature review (SLR) showing the benefits, challenges and future research of blockchain technology (BT) for the supply chain (SC), also suggesting how the features of BT can change the organizational aspects of the SC. Design/methodology/approach An SLR has been conducted to detect papers that contained the word āBlockchainā in their titles, keywords or abstracts. Consequently, a second filter to analyze BT papers for the SC was applied. Findings This paper shows through 31 variables classified into positive, negative and future directions of technology for the SC. For instance, BT will reduce time consuming of operations management and payments using smart contracts. In addition, integrating BT with other technologies will allow product tracking and sustainable production management. Research limitations/implications The selection of papers is limited to Scopus database and specifically to the Management Journal . Practical implications BT creates collaborative peer-to-peer and business-to-business markets. The technology automates several tasks such as order management, payment for goods, waste reduction and process control. Therefore, its use within the SCs will improve the productivity and profits of the participants. Originality/value This paper is focused on BT for the SC area with 60 articles analyzed. In addition, 13 variables on benefits, eight variables on challenges and 12 points on future research directions were analyzed. This work will help researchers and entrepreneurs to deepen about the changes that BT offers in SC.
In the e-commerce market, many e-commerce platforms act as resellers when selling products, and act as agents when selling other products. In the sales process, e-commerce platforms can either build their own blockchain anti-counterfeit traceability platforms or cooperate with third-party blockchain anti-counterfeit traceability platforms. This will generate four scenarios: (a) reseller, building its own platform (RE); (b) reseller, cooperating with a third-party platform (RO); (c) agent, building its own platform (ME); (d) agent, cooperating with a third-party platform (MO). Therefore, this paper constructs a differential game model under four modes to explore the interaction between the choice of sales mode and the choice of anti-counterfeit traceability service strategy. The results show that suppliersā profits are influenced by various aspects. On the one hand, in small-scale markets, the situation in which suppliers can realize higher profits evolves from ME to RO as the wholesale price increases, and in large-scale markets, suppliers are more profitable in the ME mode. On the other hand, with the increase of market scale and the decrease of unit price of anti-counterfeit traceability service of third-party platform, the situation that suppliers can achieve higher profit evolves from RE to RO and then to RE. For e-commerce platform, self-built platform is a better choice. In the small-scale market, as the market size increases, the cost performance of anti-counterfeit traceability service decreases, and the best choice for e-commerce platform evolves from resale to agency sales, and in the large-scale market, the best choice for e-commerce platform is resale.
Following the globalization initiated by containerization of logistics, supply chains might be due another revolution by the integration of the disruptive blockchain technology that addresses the current issues with the management of complex global supply chains. Blockchains are distributed digital ledgers that require no central authority to operate while offering a tamper-proof and transparent history of each transaction from the very beginning. Distributed nature of these ledgers ensure that every participant of the supply chain has access to trusted data. The industry has already begun experimenting with blockchain integration into their operations. For the majority of the organizations, however, these experiments stay in proof-of-concept stages or small pilot studies. In this chapter, the authors discuss the supply chain characteristics that make blockchain integration favorable, lay the groundwork for how blockchain can be used for supply chain operations and how it has been used so far.
We take a zero tolerance to any situation where fraudulent research is published in our journals. As a result, this article has been retracted by the Publisher because it is suspected to be a nonsensical computer-generated publication with a number of tortured phrases and irrelevant references. Additional measures have been implemented to prevent these issues from reoccurring. EDP Sciences is extremely grateful to anonymous whistleblowers and the Problematic Paper Screener for bringing this case to our attention for further investigations.