Sustainable Supply Chains with Blockchain, IoT and RFID: A Simulation on Order Management

Vincenzo Varriale, Antonello Cammarano, Francesca Michelino and Mauro Caputo
Additional contact information
Vincenzo Varriale: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy
Antonello Cammarano: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy
Francesca Michelino: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy
Mauro Caputo: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-23

Abstract: The digital transformation of supply chains should revolutionize entire management processes and improve various aspects of sustainability. In particular, the plans of Industry 4.0 aim towards a digitization of several procedures by exploiting emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, RFID and blockchain. The purpose of this study is to highlight how order and disruption events processes can be improved with the adoption of emerging technologies and how this reflects on the improvement of sustainability aspects. The study is based on the comparison of two simulation scenarios between three actors in the cheese supply chain. In particular, a first traditional scenario “as is” is simulated without the use of new technologies and is compared to a second scenario “to be” that adopts IoT, RFID and blockchain. The results show an improvement in time performance for managing both perfect and non-compliant orders. The developed framework highlights the impact of new technologies on sustainability aspects, showing further managerial implications.

Keywords: blockchain; RFID; IoT; order management; digital technologies; disruption events; sustainability; simulation; supply chain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6372/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6372/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:11:p:6372-:d:568460

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().