Blockchain Implementations and Use Cases for Supply Chains-A Survey

• Published in: IEEE access Vol. 8; pp. 11856 - 11871
• Main Authors: Gonczol, Peter, Katsikouli, Panagiota, Herskind, Lasse, Dragoni, Nicola
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 2020; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Bibliographies; Blockchain; Cryptocurrency; Cryptography; Digital currencies; Distributed ledger; distributed ledger technology; implementations and use cases; Organizations; Supply chains
• ISSN: 2169-3536; 2169-3536
• DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2964880

Since Bitcoin's debut in 2008, blockchain, the technology behind the cryptocurrency, has been gaining increasing scientific and industrial interest. Due to the technology's innate distributed and immutable features, the adoption of blockchains on supply chains is one of the most promising recent applications. In this survey, we review academic researches and implementations of distributed ledgers on supply chains. We present the current state of research on the subject and summarize the benefits and the challenges of the distributed organization and management of supply chains. Focusing on industrial practices and use cases, we discuss the technical characteristics and maturity of the various industrial projects. Our goal is to assess the applicability of blockchains in the supply chain domain and to provide a foundation for practitioners and researchers to direct their future projects towards improving the technology and its applications.