Process traceability in distributed manufacturing using blockchains

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel Machine Sharing Economy (MSE) approach to support machine owners in sharing idle machine capacities by means of a marketplace. Manufacturing networks and supply chains are thus no longer static and driven by long-term agreements, but rather dynamic and time-bound. In such distributed manufacturing systems, it is important to keep track of the operations that have been performed, including relevant production information such as the actual machines performing a task, tools, and their parameters. We propose a tamper-proof blockchain-based framework to close the feedback cycle by emitting relevant events of the production process and storing process values in the blockchain. This paper describes the overall architecture of the system including a detailed discussion how the feedback cycle for distributed manufacturing systems has been realized using blockchains. In addition, we perform an empirical validation at a real-world digital factory and present our lessons learned.