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

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,...

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Main Authors: Antonios Litke, Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos, Theodora Varvarigou
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2019-01-01
Series:Logistics
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/3/1/5
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author Antonios Litke
Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos
Theodora Varvarigou
author_facet Antonios Litke
Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos
Theodora Varvarigou
author_sort Antonios Litke
collection DOAJ
description 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.
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spelling doaj-art-36e59b0bc085468d8d2d13a0da15437a2025-08-20T03:29:13ZengMDPI AGLogistics2305-62902019-01-0131510.3390/logistics3010005logistics3010005Blockchains for Supply Chain Management: Architectural Elements and Challenges Towards a Global Scale DeploymentAntonios Litke0Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos1Theodora Varvarigou2Electrical and Computer Engineering school, National Technical University of Athens, 157 73 Athens, GreeceDepartment of Informatics and Telematics, Harokopio University of Athens, 176 76 Athens, GreeceElectrical and Computer Engineering school, National Technical University of Athens, 157 73 Athens, GreeceBlockchains 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.http://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/3/1/5Blockchainssupply chain managementdistributed ledgersconsensus
spellingShingle Antonios Litke
Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos
Theodora Varvarigou
Blockchains for Supply Chain Management: Architectural Elements and Challenges Towards a Global Scale Deployment
Logistics
Blockchains
supply chain management
distributed ledgers
consensus
title Blockchains for Supply Chain Management: Architectural Elements and Challenges Towards a Global Scale Deployment
title_full Blockchains for Supply Chain Management: Architectural Elements and Challenges Towards a Global Scale Deployment
title_fullStr Blockchains for Supply Chain Management: Architectural Elements and Challenges Towards a Global Scale Deployment
title_full_unstemmed Blockchains for Supply Chain Management: Architectural Elements and Challenges Towards a Global Scale Deployment
title_short Blockchains for Supply Chain Management: Architectural Elements and Challenges Towards a Global Scale Deployment
title_sort blockchains for supply chain management architectural elements and challenges towards a global scale deployment
topic Blockchains
supply chain management
distributed ledgers
consensus
url http://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/3/1/5
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AT theodoravarvarigou blockchainsforsupplychainmanagementarchitecturalelementsandchallengestowardsaglobalscaledeployment