Design And Application Of A Manufacturing Supply Chain Quality Information Sharing System Based On Permissioned Blockchain

Modern manufacturers often have a high level of internal quality visibility but a low level of supply-chain wide quality visibility.Research indicates that quality information sharing in a supply chain can improve product quality,reduce defects,and contribute to supply chain success.However,many organizations do not share quality data because of fear of losing competitive advantage,difficulty in multi-tier coordination,and incompatible information systems.Permissioned blockchain may help address this problem by providing a secure way to share tamper-proof data across all levels of a supply chain while protecting data privacy.While significant research has focused on the application of traditional blockchain technology to supply chains,comparatively little research has evaluated or demonstrated the ability of newer,permissioned blockchains to solve problems in supply chain quality management.This paper seeks to evaluate whether permissioned blockchain is a viable solution to the supply chain quality information sharing problem,and what design trade-offs should be considered during implementation.It does this by designing and building a proof-of-concept supply chain system and application based on Hyperledger Fabric(HLF)2.3 permissioned blockchain,and testing it for data access and confidentiality requirements.First,the paper briefly reviews the research background and concepts unique to blockchain technology and the HLF permissioned blockchain platform.Next,the requirements for a supply chain quality information sharing system are identified,and using QFD analysis,the design characteristics for a system are identified and ranked based on their ability to meet customer requirements.A competitive analysis is performed which shows that the proposed system satisfies 5 out of 7 customer requirements better than existing enterprise information systems.Next,a comparative analysis of the top 5 blockchain platforms used in industry was performed and HLF was selected for the given use case.Using the outputs from the QFD analysis,a permissioned blockchain-based supply chain quality information sharing system was designed,considering identity creation method,quantity for each type of node,server integration,private data configuration,data structure design,smart contract design and application design.The designed system was setup and deployed on a distributed network consisting of 4 rented VPS servers located in China,Singapore,US,and Germany.To assess the capability of the proposed system to satisfy the need for information sharing and privacy protection in a supply chain,a simulation of an automotive supply chain was conducted using the designed blockchain system.The simulation involved the design,order,manufacture,inspection,shipping,and delivery of 4 components which were assembled into an automotive product.Quality information for individual components and assemblies,including quality manufacturing requirements and inspection data,was entered into the system through the respective supplier and customer portals and queried by different members of the supply chain.The simulation results showed that the proposed system was able to provide visibility of quality data across multiple tiers of the supply chain while protecting the details of transactions from the view of competitors in the same network,thus validating the potential of permissioned blockchain to solve the supply chain quality information sharing problem.