Blockchain in Supply Chain Management

Abstract

Due to the expeditious growth in network and communication technologies, various industries such as healthcare, agriculture, supply chain and logistics, business, tourism, and hospitality as well as their various operations have undergone complete digitized transitions in industry 4.0. Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Demand Driven Supply Chain (DDSC) can be considered a core functionality of all these industries. Due to digitization in all the aforementioned industries and the related supply chain management, transparency, security, and privacy have become major aspects to be of concern. Innumerable open security solutions and research studies have been proposed in the existing literature and applied to enhance the security in variegated domains. However, the existing security mechanisms are either based on centralized architecture or they consume high computation power. To resolve these issues, Blockchain technology has been proven to be the best solution that depicts the new business aspects. Furthermore, Blockchain technology can address the additional requirements of supply chain management and demand-driven supply chain viz. scalability, robustness, data storage, network latency, auditability, immutability, and traceability. Moreover, the transparency and trust in the system can be achieved by Blockchain-based architecture without third-party intervention. Blockchain, as a distributed and peer-to-peer network technology facilitates immutable and transparent systems to satisfy the above-mentioned need of any industry including SCM. So, the discussion on the ecosystem of Blockchain-based supply chains as well as the demand-driven supply chain is emphasized in this chapter. In addition, the barriers and limitations to implementing Blockchain in supply chain management and demand-driven supply chain are explored along with its security aspects. Lastly, distinct case studies and schemes that discuss the success of Blockchain in supply chain management and demand-driven supply chain are presented.