Blockchain technologies for interoperation of business processes in smart supply chains

The Smart Manufacturing paradigm requires support by smart supply chains with capabilities of self-organizing and self-optimizing capabilities to accommodate uncertainties. Conventional supply chains face challenges in optimizing logistic processes and reducing overall costs of products and services. The emerging Internet of Things, Cyber-Physical Systems, and blockchain have laid the foundation to support interoperation in satisfying scalability, security, flexibility, and responsiveness of supply chains. Blockchain has shown potential in improving scalability and security. We are highly motivated to scrutinize technical obstacles of integrating blockchain into smart supply chains in the industrial Internet of Things environment. Our attempt is to integrate blockchain into Service-oriented Architecture for seamless interoperations. The system architecture and framework are presented and prototyped to enable Blockchain for the cooperation of business processes. The simulation has shown the effectiveness in improving the scalability, robustness, and adaptability of business processes in a smart supply chain.

Automated summary

Smart manufacturing requires smart supply chains to accommodate uncertainties. The Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems, and blockchain provide the foundation for scalable, secure, flexible, and responsive supply chains. This paper investigates the technical obstacles of integrating blockchain into smart supply chains and presents a system architecture and framework.