scholarly journals Blockchain-based Supply Chain Traceability for COVID-19 PPE

Author(s):  
Ilhaam Omar ◽  
Mazin Debe ◽  
Raja Jayaraman ◽  
Khaled Salah ◽  
Mohammed Omar ◽  
...  

<div>The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted many industries, in particular the healthcare sector exposing systemic vulnerabilities in emergency preparedness, risk mitigation, and supply chain management. A major challenge during the pandemic was related to the increased demand of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) resulting in critical shortages for healthcare and frontline workers. The lack of information visibility combined with the inability to precisely track product movement within the supply chain requires an robust traceability solution. Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger that ensures a transparent,</div><div>safe, and secure exchange of data among supply chain stakeholders. The advantages of adopting blockchain technology to manage and track PPE products in the supply chain include decentralized control, security, traceability,</div><div>and auditable time-stamped transactions. In this paper, we present a blockchain-based approach using smart contracts to transform PPE supply chain operations. We propose a generic framework using Ethereum smart contracts and</div><div>decentralized storage systems to automate the processes and information exchange and present detailed algorithms that capture the interactions among supply chain stakeholders. The smart contract code was developed and tested in Remix environment, and the code is made publicly available on Github. We present detailed cost and security analysis incurred by the stakeholders in the supply chain. Adopting a blockchain-based solution for PPE supply chains is economically viable and provides a streamlined, secure, trusted, and transparent mode of communication among various stakeholders.</div>

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilhaam Omar ◽  
Mazin Debe ◽  
Raja Jayaraman ◽  
Khaled Salah ◽  
Mohammed Omar ◽  
...  

<div>The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted many industries, in particular the healthcare sector exposing systemic vulnerabilities in emergency preparedness, risk mitigation, and supply chain management. A major challenge during the pandemic was related to the increased demand of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) resulting in critical shortages for healthcare and frontline workers. The lack of information visibility combined with the inability to precisely track product movement within the supply chain requires an robust traceability solution. Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger that ensures a transparent,</div><div>safe, and secure exchange of data among supply chain stakeholders. The advantages of adopting blockchain technology to manage and track PPE products in the supply chain include decentralized control, security, traceability,</div><div>and auditable time-stamped transactions. In this paper, we present a blockchain-based approach using smart contracts to transform PPE supply chain operations. We propose a generic framework using Ethereum smart contracts and</div><div>decentralized storage systems to automate the processes and information exchange and present detailed algorithms that capture the interactions among supply chain stakeholders. The smart contract code was developed and tested in Remix environment, and the code is made publicly available on Github. We present detailed cost and security analysis incurred by the stakeholders in the supply chain. Adopting a blockchain-based solution for PPE supply chains is economically viable and provides a streamlined, secure, trusted, and transparent mode of communication among various stakeholders.</div>


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (16) ◽  
pp. 5307
Author(s):  
Ricardo Borges dos Santos ◽  
Nunzio Marco Torrisi ◽  
Rodrigo Palucci Pantoni

Every consumer’s buying decision at the supermarket influences food brands to make first party claims of sustainability and socially responsible farming methods on their agro-product labels. Fine wines are often subject to counterfeit along the supply chain to the consumer. This paper presents a method for efficient unrestricted publicity to third party certification (TPC) of plant agricultural products, starting at harvest, using smart contracts and blockchain tokens. The method is capable of providing economic incentives to the actors along the supply chain. A proof-of-concept using a modified Ethereum IGR token set of smart contracts using the ERC-1155 standard NFTs was deployed on the Rinkeby test net and evaluated. The main findings include (a) allowing immediate access to TPC by the public for any desired authority by using token smart contracts. (b) Food safety can be enhanced through TPC visible to consumers through mobile application and blockchain technology, thus reducing counterfeiting and green washing. (c) The framework is structured and maintained because participants obtain economical incentives thus leveraging it´s practical usage. In summary, this implementation of TPC broadcasting through tokens can improve transparency and sustainable conscientious consumer behaviour, thus enabling a more trustworthy supply chain transparency.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Madine ◽  
Khaled Salah ◽  
Raja Jayaraman ◽  
Yousof Al-Hammadi ◽  
Junaid Arshad ◽  
...  

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize industries by offering decentralized, transparent, data provenance, auditable, reliable, and trustworthy features. However, cross-chain interoperability is one of the crucial challenges preventing widespread adoption of blockchain applications. Cross-chain interoperability represents the ability for one blockchain network to interact and share data with another blockchain network. Contemporary cross-chain interoperability solutions are centralized and require re-engineering of the core blockchain stack to enable inter-communication and data sharing among heterogeneous blockchain networks. In this paper, we propose an application-based cross-chain interoperability solution that allows blockchain networks of any architecture type and industrial focus to inter-communicate, share data, and make requests. Our solution utilizes the decentralized applications as a distributed translation layer that is capable of communicating and understanding multiple blockchain networks, thereby delegating requests and parameters among them. The architecture uses incentivized verifier nodes that maintain the integrity of shared data facilitating them to be readable by the entities of their network. We define and describe the roles and requirements of major entities of inter-operating blockchain networks in the context of healthcare. We present a detailed explanation of the sequence of interactions needed to share an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) document from one blockchain network to another along with the required algorithms. We implement the proposed solution with Ethereum-based smart contracts for two hospitals and also present cost and security analysis for the cross-chain interoperability solution. We make our smart contracts code and testing scripts publicly available.


Author(s):  
Mian Wasim Layaq ◽  
Alexander Goudz ◽  
Bernd Noche ◽  
Muhammad Atif

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver Bischoff ◽  
Stefan Seuring

PurposeBlockchain technology is provoking significant disruptions, thereby affecting supply chain management. This study endeavoured to advance research regarding blockchain-based supply chain traceability by identifying the opportunities and limitations that accompany the adoption of public blockchains. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to contribute to contemporary supply chain research by an assessment of blockchain technology and its linkages to traceability.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is conceptual. The authors summarised the relevant literature on the concepts of supply chain traceability, conceptualised key elements exclusive to the public blockchain and highlighted opportunities and limitations in implementing traceability using blockchains.FindingsIncompatibilities were identified between general traceability and the public blockchain. However, when embracing the blockchain's privacy model, the blockchains can support information exchange in supply chains where vulnerability towards third parties, the confidentiality of information, or the privacy of participants are concerns. Furthermore, the public blockchain can support areas of supply chains where institutional interest is lacking.Originality/valueThis is one of the first papers in an international supply chain management journal to critically analyse the intersection of specific blockchain characteristics and supply chain traceability requirements. The authors thereby add to the discussion of designs for a disintermediated, peer-to-peer models and guide researchers and practitioners alike in exploring the application of disruptive change from blockchain technologies. By setting focus on the privacy model, the paper identifies the potential application and future research approaches to exploit the elementary strength of the blockchain.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Madine ◽  
Khaled Salah ◽  
Raja Jayaraman ◽  
Yousof Al-Hammadi ◽  
Junaid Arshad ◽  
...  

Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize industries by offering decentralized, transparent, data provenance, auditable, reliable, and trustworthy features. However, cross-chain interoperability is one of the crucial challenges preventing widespread adoption of blockchain applications. Cross-chain interoperability represents the ability for one blockchain network to interact and share data with another blockchain network. Contemporary cross-chain interoperability solutions are centralized and require re-engineering of the core blockchain stack to enable inter-communication and data sharing among heterogeneous blockchain networks. In this paper, we propose an application-based cross-chain interoperability solution that allows blockchain networks of any architecture type and industrial focus to inter-communicate, share data, and make requests. Our solution utilizes the decentralized applications as a distributed translation layer that is capable of communicating and understanding multiple blockchain networks, thereby delegating requests and parameters among them. The architecture uses incentivized verifier nodes that maintain the integrity of shared data facilitating them to be readable by the entities of their network. We define and describe the roles and requirements of major entities of inter-operating blockchain networks in the context of healthcare. We present a detailed explanation of the sequence of interactions needed to share an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) document from one blockchain network to another along with the required algorithms. We implement the proposed solution with Ethereum-based smart contracts for two hospitals and also present cost and security analysis for the cross-chain interoperability solution. We make our smart contracts code and testing scripts publicly available.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 173 ◽  
Author(s):  
May McMaster ◽  
Charlie Nettleton ◽  
Christeen Tom ◽  
Belanda Xu ◽  
Cheng Cao ◽  
...  

Through an international business risk management lens, the widespread and catalytic implications of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chains (SCs) of fashion multinational corporations (MNC) are analyzed to contribute to existing research on supply chain management (SCM). While a movement towards agile, networked supply chain models had been in consideration for many firms prior to the outbreak, the pandemic highlights issues inherent in supply chains that employ concentrated production. We examined the current state of fashion supply chains, risks that have arisen historically and recently, and existing risk mitigation methods. We found that while lean supply chain management is primarily favored for its cost and waste reduction advantages, the structure is limited by the lack of supply chain transparency that results as well as the increasing demand volatility observed even before the COVID-19 outbreak. Although this problem might exist in the agile supply chain, agile supply chains combat this by focusing on enhancing communication and buyer-supplier relationships to improve information exchange. However, this structure also entails an associated increase in inventory and inventory costs. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused supply and demand disruptions which have resonating effects on supply chain activities and management, indicating a need to build flexibility to mitigate epidemic and demand risks. To address this, several strategies that firms can adopt to control for such risks are outlined and key areas for further research are identified which consider parties both upstream and downstream of the fashion supply chain.


Author(s):  
Urshila Ravindran ◽  
Pragya Bhardwaj ◽  
P. Raghu Vamsi

Blockchain is a trusted distributed ledger shared across the business processes. Blockchain technology focuses on automating tasks in a distributed environment. Proving as one of the effective platforms, it helps in mapping the physical commodities to the digital ledger. A digital ledger is like an electronic register for storing the transactions that are taking place among various commodities. The physical commodities include suppliers, manufacturers, exporters, consumers and distributors wherein the distributor plays a major role in determining the product standards. To this end, this paper presents a Blockchain design for securing Supply Chain Management (SCM) in Coffee Retailer Network (CRN). The proposed design made with the view that it further be implemented with smart contracts to establish a private or consortium Blockchain application for the asset tracking processes in the coffee retailer network. The proposed model can bring transparency, sustainability and efficiency in asset tracking.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dounia Marbouh ◽  
Tayaba Abbasi ◽  
Fatema Maasmi ◽  
Ilhaam Omar ◽  
Mazin Debe ◽  
...  

<p>The sudden development of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the limitations in modern healthcare systems to handle public health emergencies. It is evident that adopting innovative technologies such as blockchain can help in effective planning operations and resource deployments. Blockchain technology can play an important role in the healthcare sector such as improved clinical trial data management by reducing delays in regulatory approvals, streamline the communication between diverse stakeholders of the supply chain etc. Moreover, the spread of misinformation has intensely increased during the outbreak and existing platforms lack the ability to validate the authenticity of data, causing people to panic and act irrationally. Thus, developing a blockchain-based tracking system is important to ensure that the information received by the public and government agencies are reliable and trustworthy. In this paper, we focus on blockchain abilities to track the COVID-19 data collected from various sources including news, healthcare professionals, researchers etc, verify and append them in a secure and trusted distributed ledger. Thus, we propose a generic framework using Ethereum smart contracts and oracles to track real-time data related to the number of new cases, deaths and recovered cases obtained from trusted sources. We present detailed algorithms that capture the interactions between stakeholders in the network. The smart contract code was developed and tested in Remix environment. We present the cost and security analysis incurred by the stakeholders and highlight the challenges and future directions of our work. Our work demonstrates that the proposed solution is economically feasible and ensures data integrity, security, transparency, data traceability among stakeholders. </p>


Author(s):  
S. Liu ◽  
D. Roy ◽  
S. Hennequin

Aims: The purpose of this research paper is the study of the applicability of Blockchain technology and Smart Contracts to manage, control and secure an industrial Internet of Things network (IoT) for pooled warehouses with multiple actors and activities (not only restricted to transport and storage as currently developed in enterprises). Problem: IoT technology enables things to connect and exchange data, resulting in efficiency improvements, economic benefits, reduced human intervention and enabled interactions (information exchange and analysis) between human/machine to machine. However, the main difficulties lie in the definition of a robust global mechanism to secure the IoT, the awareness of resources diversity (heterogeneity of devices), and physical management of IoT. This article will attempt to answer these questionings. Results: To respond to these questions, we propose a hybrid architecture based on blockchains and multi-agents system to secure an industrial IoT corresponding to a pooled warehouse system. The proposed hybrid architecture completely represents our system, with all actors and connected objects in the pooled warehouse strategy. It is composed by two parts: a centralized part based on the multi-agents system to represent dynamic evolutions of actors’ behavior and a decentralized part, which corresponds to our block chain and smart contracts network to dynamically connect actors’ agents to pooled resources. The multi-agent system is coupled with game theory (cooperative game) to have a good systemic representation of our pooled warehouse management problem.


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