Enhancing supply chain management using blockchain technology

Abstract

Blockchain technology is emerging in every field. Blockchain is a constantly growing ledger that keeps a permanent record of all the transactions that have taken place in a distributed, decentralized and immutable way. Supply Chain Management is a broad range of activities that involve the management of the flow of goods and services, from the point of inception to the point of consumption. Blockchain technology can i) assure provenance tracking and traceability across the supply chain management ii) improves the quantity, quality and access to information at every step of the way across the chain iii) provides a more transparent way to provide data or information at a given instance of time. Blockchain technology can also be adapted in the supply chain management to overcome its disadvantages. The paper shows different case studies where the benefits of applying blockchain technology in supply chain management are appealing that has shown many benefits. It highlights the cases that have reduced fraud and errors; mitigate risks and provide data transparency and privacy, etc. The paper shows the creation of a general blockchain network and the information passing mechanism which is used to pass the information among the participants across the supply chain. With information passing mechanism we can provide data transparency to the consumers across the supply chain.