Smart Contracts for supply chain applicable to Smart Cities daily operations

Abstract

In Smart Cities, an era of technology and on-demand offerings, being able to have a signed contract in the least amount of time possible can significantly benefit business operations. This project focuses on the Document of Understanding (DOU) contract oriented to supply chain operations, which forms the basis for the relationship between a consumer service and the provider of that service. The sign off of this process is currently too long; opening an opportunity to apply Blockchain as a solution. For this task, we have used local resources, applying design thinking and agile practices to create a local Blockchain Ledger. Consequently, we created a proof of concept Blockchain demo, which holds the complete detailed history of the agreement, with immutable transactions and transparency, adding security and privacy of the participant’s information. With this demo, we registered the time needed to have the DOU contract signed off by everyone involved in the process, and it was drastically improved. The innovative contribution of this project is the application of Blockchain to our business activities, improving business operations, and giving us a real-time view of all the information. As a result, when combining our work methods with the latest technology, we have all-around improvements in business operations. Now with a successful trial run of the application, we can confidently apply smart contracts in day to day activities in a Smart City; it can be replicated in other areas that manage sensitive information and financial reports.