Digital Supply Chain Transformation Toward Blockchain Integration
Digital Supply Chain Transformation Toward Blockchain Integration
Digital Supply Chain Transformation Toward Blockchain Integration
جامعة النيلين
كلية الدراسات العليا
برنامج الدكتوراة DBA
الدفعة التاسعة
Digital Supply Chain Transformation toward Block chain Integration
Digital supply chain integration is becoming
increasingly dynamic. Access to customer demand
needs to be shared effectively, and product and service
deliveries must be tracked to provide visibility in the
supply chain. Business process integration is based on
standards and reference architectures, which should
offer end-to-end integration of product data.
Companies operating in supply chains establish
process and data integration through the specialized
intermediate companies, whose role is to establish
interoperability by mapping and integrating company-
specific data for various organizations and systems.
This has typically caused high integration costs, and
diffusion is slow.
DSC should offer companies competitive advantage:
intermediates should offer fast integration; logistics
partners should offer visibility of deliveries, using
tracking and tracing features; information and
communication technology (ICT) companies should
develop cost-effective cloud solutions; and finance
providers should offer working capital through the
transaction banking services.
In DSC transactions, organizations currently execute
process and data integration through the trusted third
parties, most often through the trade finance services of
banks. However, several advocates of block chain
technology (BC) have promised to change this [1] by
minimizing unnecessary use of third party intermediaries.
Advantageous features of BC include a public ledger of
transactions without transaction party identities, the use of
public key infrastructure (PKI) to notify counterparties
about executable transactions and the concept of the smart
contract. The present article investigates how block chain
technology might support digital supply chain integration.
The main research questions are i) how can we accelerate
DSC integration and ii) how will block chain technology
support that integration?
Blockchain technology is regarded as a potential
means of enhancing the security and cost effectiveness
of DSC transactions. In general, blockchain
technology is used to establish integration over the
internet and can be understood as a many-to-many
integration model, deployed in the public cloud to
conduct secured transactions rapidly and at low cost.
supply chain can be defined as a set of three or more
entities (i.e., organizations or individuals) directly
involved in the upstream and downstream flows of
products, services, finance, and/or information from a
source to a customer. This definition highlights the
role of information flows between firms, especially at
activity and business process levels. It follows that
effective integration between actors requires the
integration of processes [4] and information [5] in the
supply chain.
The benefits of Digital supply chain (DSC) include cost-
effectiveness of services and value-creating activities that
are advantageous to many actors in the ecosystem,
including firms and their suppliers, employees and
customers .
a supply chain can be defined as a set of three or more
entities (i.e., organizations or individuals) directly involved
in the upstream and downstream flows of products,
services, finance, and/or information from a source to a
customer. This definition highlights the role of information
flows between firms, especially at activity and business
process levels. It follows that effective integration between
actors requires the integration of processes and
information in the supply chain.
Other identified benefits of DSC include reduced
product or service costs, creating competitive
advantage and barriers to competition, reduced supply
chain lead times and increased flexibility in supply
chain design
. Effectiveness of information sharing refers to how
information brings new value to customers and supply
chain actors in terms of services, decision making,
visibility and prediction.
The key capability is to deliver the right information to
the right people at the right time for decision-making
purposes.
There are four transformation requirements for digital business
ecosystems, which constitute a foundation for business and
innovation development, and for the present research.
1) transaction data
2) processing ledger or smart contract
3) storing blocks to peer-to-peer networks
4) managing blocks by mining experts.