Browsing by Subject "supply chain"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    A distributed blockchain ledger for supply chain
    (2017) Wu, Haoyan; Miled, Zina
    Affordable and reliable supply chain visibility is becoming increasingly important as the complexity of the network underlying supply chains is becoming orders of magnitudes higher compared to a decade ago. Moreover, this increase in complexity is starting to reflect on the cost of goods and their availability to the consumers. Optimizing the physical distribution phase in supply chain by providing increased visibility to trading partners can directly reduce product cost. Current supply chain information systems often lack the ability to cost-effectively relay ground truth in- formation in near real time to all stakeholders and most importantly to the supplier and the customer during the transport of the shipment. This thesis presents a solu- tion that addresses this gap through a distributed architecture. The solution enables small, medium and large businesses to interact in a dynamic and shipment-centric manner through a private blockchain sub-ledger that digitizes the transfer of custody for each shipment. Information in this private ledger is augmented by a public event ledger that reflects the movement of the shipment in real time. Third party monitors are engaged in the validation of the geolocation of the shipments by posting their physical proximity in the form of events to the public ledger.
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    A Distributed Ledger for Supply Chain Physical Distribution Visibility
    (MDPI, 2017-11-02) Wu, Haoyan; Li, Zhijie; King, Brian; Ben Miled, Zina; Wassick, John; Tazelaar, Jeffrey; Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
    Supply chains (SC) span many geographies, modes and industries and involve several phases where data flows in both directions from suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, to customers. This data flow is necessary to support critical business decisions that may impact product cost and market share. Current SC information systems are unable to provide validated, pseudo real-time shipment tracking during the distribution phase. This information is available from a single source, often the carrier, and is shared with other stakeholders on an as-needed basis. This paper introduces an independent, crowd-validated, online shipment tracking framework that complements current enterprise-based SC management solutions. The proposed framework consists of a set of private distributed ledgers and a single blockchain public ledger. Each private ledger allows the private sharing of custody events among the trading partners in a given shipment. Privacy is necessary, for example, when trading high-end products or chemical and pharmaceutical products. The second type of ledger is a blockchain public ledger. It consists of the hash code of each private event in addition to monitoring events. The latter provide an independently validated immutable record of the pseudo real-time geolocation status of the shipment from a large number of sources using commuters-sourcing.
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    Supply Chain Trust: A Two-Way Street?
    (Academy of Management, 2018-07-01) Minerbo, Claudio; Flynn, Barbara B.; Carla Farias Pereira, Susana; Outlaw, Ryan
    This research compares differences between customers´ and suppliers´ perceptions of the trustworthiness of their supply chain exchange partners and the implications for performance, applying the organizational behavior and marketing literature on trust to the supply chain context. A survey in the logistics sector in Brazil was used to collect data from two independent samples (customers and suppliers). Three alternative models of the antecedents of trustworthiness perceptions and the relationship between trust and performance were tested using multiple regression. This was followed by a panel session with logistics industry experts to discuss the results and their practical implications. We found that the ability of an exchange partner is important to both suppliers and customers in their perceptions of trustworthiness. In addition, customer integrity is important to suppliers, while supplier benevolence is important to customers. Trust is related to expectations about order accuracy, quality and cost by both suppliers and customers and to suppliers’ on-time delivery expectations. The findings support the contention of social exchange theory that, when there is a trusting relationship between exchange partners, there is heightened commitment to jointly held goals. They also support transaction cost economics theory by showing how trust forms an intangible transaction- specific asset that serves as a governance mechanism against opportunistic behavior. The findings provide a useful guideline for managers seeking to improve trust in their supply chain relationships. This paper extends interorganizational trust models showing that the relationship between trust and performance may not be applicable to customers and suppliers in the same manner.