Blockchains for Supply Chain Management: Architectural Elements and Challenges Towards a Global Scale Deployment

Antonios Litke, Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos and Theodora Varvarigou
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Antonios Litke: Electrical and Computer Engineering school, National Technical University of Athens, 157 73 Athens, Greece
Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos: Department of Informatics and Telematics, Harokopio University of Athens, 176 76 Athens, Greece
Theodora Varvarigou: Electrical and Computer Engineering school, National Technical University of Athens, 157 73 Athens, Greece

Logistics, 2019, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Blockchains are attracting the attention of stakeholders in many industrial domains, including the logistics and supply chain industries. Blockchain technology can effectively contribute in recording every single asset throughout its flow on the supply chain, contribute in tracking orders, receipts, and payments, while track digital assets such as warranties and licenses in a unified and transparent way. The paper provides, through its methodology, a detailed analysis of the blockchain fit in the supply chain industry. It defines the specific elements of blockchain that affect supply chain such as scalability, performance, consensus mechanism, privacy considerations, location proof and cost, and details on the impact that blockchains will have in disrupting the supply chain industry. Discussing the tradeoff between consensus cost, throughput and validation time it proceeds with a suggested high-level architectural approach, and concludes as a result with a discussion on changes needed and challenges faced for an in-vivo deployment of blockchains in the supply chain industry. While the technological features of modern blockchains can effectively facilitate supply chain uses cases, the various challenges that still remain, bring in front of us a wide set of needed changes and further research efforts for achieving a global, production level blockchain for the supply chain industry.

Keywords: Blockchains; supply chain management; distributed ledgers; consensus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L8 L80 L81 L86 L87 L9 L90 L91 L92 L93 L98 L99 M1 M10 M11 M16 M19 R4 R40 R41 R49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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