Blockchain-enabled supply chain traceability – How wide? How deep?

Abstract

Supply chain traceability (SCT) has become increasingly important for many reasons, including regulatory compliance, quality assurance, product counterfeiting, sustainability, and customer concerns on the provenance and authenticity of products. The complexity of globally dispersed supply chains is a major challenge for SCT. Blockchain technology's ability to support information sharing in a distributed network and create an immutable and traceable digital record of historical transactions makes it an attractive option for SCT. However, a major challenge persists – defining the scope of a blockchain-enabled SCT solution in terms of the number stages of the supply chain encompassed and the granularity of information captured at each supply chain stage. We analyze multiple cross-industry case studies and conduct an expert executive workshop to identify empirically the motivations and contextual factors influencing the diversity in the scope of traceability targeted by different organizations. We present a new evidence-based framework to define the scope of SCT depending on the motivations for and purpose of traceability. The framework specifies five identification categories and five levels of granularity of information within each category to inform and support decision-making on the types of data to capture across the supply chain for effective and scalable deployment of blockchain-enabled SCT solutions. The study highlights the need for more research examining the optimal level of traceability for different industries and supply chain configurations.