Ensuring Logistics Integrity: An Ethereum Framework

In this study, we examine the potential benefits and difficulties of integrating blockchain technology based on Ethereum into logistics management systems. Our goal is to offer a thorough grasp of this technology's influence on the logistics sector by looking at its theoretical underpinnings and real-world implementations. Significant outcomes from our research include greater logistic transparency, real-time updates, increased security, and automation of contractual duties. These findings underscore the need to embrace innovation and create a legislative framework that facilitates the implementation of blockchain technology, with broad ramifications for logistics firms and legislators. Our study adds to the expanding corpus of information on the application of blockchain technology in logistics, offering insightful information to scholars, policymakers, and business professionals

Smart Technology Trends, Smart Supply Chain Management Implementation, and Smart Supply Chain Innovation Performance in Developing and Developed Economies

Many companies and scholars predict that supply chain configuration will undergo a significant adjustment during this period of change in a digitally driven future. The supply chain and management industry view these risks as including the rising frequency of disruptions to the global trading system caused by both endogenous and exogenous risks, including extreme weather events, pandemics, cybersecurity threats, and financial crises, as well as the widespread use of technology created during the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Businesses that survive the upcoming changes in customer behavior will have invested in digitization and diversity. The researcher determines the association between smart supply chain management implementation and smart supply chain innovation performance, mediated by smart technology trends in developing and developed countries, using a descriptive quantitative approach. Results show that the performance of smart supply chain innovation and smart supply chain management are not correlated. Furthermore, smart supply chain management's ability to mediate smart technological advances is notably lacking. As a result, the researcher produced an implementation strategy to improve the optimization of smart technological trends in the smart supply chain, in both developed and developing nations

Smart Contract in the Supply Chain – A Bibliometric Analysis and Review

Over the past 10 years, blockchain technology has been increasingly applied in various industrial and scientific fields, including in the supply chain. Blockchain applications in the supply chain field that are starting to develop are decentralized applications without involving third parties, known as smart contract. Smart contract applications are computer protocols designed to facilitate, verify, and automatically enforce negotiations and agreements between multiple parties who may not know each other yet. However, how to form smart contract applications and how successful the application has not been widely discussed. This paper will review 39 literatures regarding smart contract in the supply chain that have been selected based on the criteria of the publisher, year of publication, number of citations, and keywords. The result of this literature review is the grouping of smart contract applications in various sectors in the supply chain, the methodology used, and the output from previous research. In addition, the analysis of keywords and future research on those articles was carried out

Last Mile Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Cold Chain Logistical Challenge

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health and humanitarian crisis that has wreaked havoc on economies and industries around the world. This study aims to address the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines at the last mile by evaluating the vaccine supply chain and how it can be effectively utilized to address the last mile distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines through simulation. The first part includes a systematic literature review and bibliometric study of vaccine supply chain and cold chain logistics studies conducted in the last decade. The second part examines the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in Norway as a case study. The study develops a two-stage optimization simulation method to analyse and improve the logistical performance of the COVID-19 vaccine distribution in Inland County, Norway. The study analyses the impact of fleet size and the use of heterogeneous vehicles in the last mile distribution network on some key performance indicators. The findings from the study reveal that the service level, transportation costs and environmental performance of the vaccine logistics system are significantly influenced by routing decisions, fleet size, fleet composition and the types of heterogeneous vehicles used. Based on the findings from the study, some managerial insights are outlined to help logistics managers better understand the interactions between the key parameters of a cold chain vaccine distribution system

Shedding Light on the Blockchain Disintermediation Mystery: A Review and Future Research Agenda

Blockchain technology has been in the interest of IS researchers and practitioners for several years. One key reason for this curiosity is the possibility to carry out peer-to-peer transactions without a trusted intermediary. Building upon this capability, many researchers posited that blockchain technology would remove traditional intermediaries from their market position. This process has been described in electronic markets literature as Disintermediation. However, other researchers proposed a more distinct perspective by proposing that blockchain technology will not facilitate Disintermediation in all settings. Thus, no unified view on this topic exists yet. Our literature review identifies three dominating concepts in blockchain literature: Extensive Disintermediation, Limited Disintermediation, and Re-Intermediation. We further highlight in our findings that most of the identified literature does not consider all market functions as described in the electronic markets literature. Hence, we provide a structured overview of the field and possibilities for future research

Процедури моделювання логістичних транспортних систем у середовищі мереж Петрі

The article presents the methodology of the logistic system simulation into the Petri Nets environment on the example of agro-products delivery from Ukraine to the Netherlands, as well as a set of case-studies that can be used as didactic means for course “The modeling of transport processes” to teach the future transport industry specialists. The content, features and capabilities of the Petri Nets in the logistics systems simulation have been analyzed. A structural logistic system model of agro-products delivery, which takes into account the operation sequence, the combination peculiarities and the use resources in each subsystem, has been constructed into the Petri Nets. A time criterion has been proposed to determine the effective option for agro-products delivery. According to the results of the logistics system simulation into the Petri Nets environment, a statistical analysis of the parameters has been carried out. It has been made a choice of a suitable option of the delivery scheme allowing for the time spent and the magnitude of the possible costs associated with the use of certain transport modes. It has been made conclusion about feasibility of creating the case-study set, which is based on real facts and being solved into the Petri Nets environment, in order to organize the future transport industry specialists’ study and research activities.У статті представлена ​​методологія моделювання логістичної системи в середовищі Петрі-Мережі на прикладі доставки агропродукції з України до Нідерландів, а також набір тематичних досліджень, які можна використовувати як дидактичний засіб курсу «Моделювання транспортних процесів »для навчання майбутніх фахівців транспортної галузі. Проаналізовано зміст, особливості та можливості мереж Петрі у моделюванні логістичних систем. Модель структурної логістичної системи доставки агропродукції, яка враховує послідовність операцій, особливості поєднання та використання ресурсів у кожній підсистемі, була вбудована в мережі Петрі. Запропоновано критерій часу для визначення ефективного варіанту доставки агропродукції. За результатами моделювання логістичної системи в середовищі мереж Петрі було проведено статистичний аналіз параметрів. Було зроблено вибір відповідного варіанту схеми доставки, що враховує витрачений час та величину можливих витрат, пов'язаних із використанням певних видів транспорту. Було зроблено висновок про доцільність створення набору тематичних досліджень, який ґрунтується на реальних фактах і втілюється в середовище мереж Петрі, з метою організації навчально-дослідницької діяльності майбутніх фахівців транспортної галузі

EDALoCo: Enhancing the accessibility of blockchains through a low-code approach to the development of event-driven applications for smart contract management

Blockchain is a cutting-edge technology based on a distributed, secure and immutable ledger that facilitates the registration of transactions and the traceability of tangible and intangible assets without requiring central governance. The agreements between the nodes participating in a blockchain network are defined through smart contracts. However, the compilation, deployment, interaction and monitoring of these smart contracts is a barrier compromising the accessibility of blockchains by non-expert developers. To address this challenge, in this paper, we propose a low-code approach, called EDALoCo, that facilitates the development of event-driven applications for smart contract management. These applications make blockchain more accessible for software developers who are non-experts in this technology as these can be modeled through graphical flows, which specify the communications between data producers, data processors and data consumers. Specifically, we have enhanced the open-source Node-RED low-code platform with blockchain technology, giving support for the creation of user-friendly and lightweight event-driven applications that can compile and deploy smart contracts in a particular blockchain. Additionally, this platform extension allows users to interact with and monitor the smart contracts already deployed in a blockchain network, hiding the implementation details from non-experts in blockchain. This approach was successfully applied to a case study of COVID-19 vaccines to monitor and obtain the temperatures to which these vaccines are continuously exposed, to process them and then to store them in a blockchain network with the aim of making them immutable and traceable to any user. As a conclusion, our approach enables the integration of blockchain with the low-code paradigm, simplifying the development of lightweight event-driven applications for smart contract management. The approach comprises a novel open-source solution that makes data security, immutability and traceability more accessible to software developers who are non-blockchain experts

Integrated modeling of the peer-to-peer markets in the energy industry

Over time, the number of smart grids installed worldwide is gradually increasing. However, the major portion of the required electricity is still being produced by traditional large-scale and centralized power systems. The main requirement, then, is to study and develop mathematical methods that attend the integration between the two systems previously announced. In this paper, a novel model that addresses this issue is presented. The model minimizes the total operating cost of the large-scale system considering the participation of the smart grid as a dynamic entity, entailing a close relationship between both systems. This approach distinguishes the novel proposal from others that solve similar situations by taking into account the two systems in isolation. Besides, the models that represent the most common organizational structures of the smart grids are also presented in this paper. They are needed to develop the integrated model. Many similar problems in the literature are solved by implementing decomposition techniques, which might obtain a local optimum different from the global one. By contrast, problems with this proposal are solved by using mixed-integer linear programming models that ensure the reaching of a global optimum. The real test case is the integrated Argentine large-scale system and the Armstrong smart grid. Results indicate that the novel model can reach solutions that are 5% lower in comparison with the traditional techniques of considering in isolation. Efficient CPU times enable the possibility of promptly obtaining solutions if there is any change in the parameters. In addition, other benefits, apart from the economical reductions, are also achieved. Operating information closer to the reality of both systems is obtained because it considers the effects of the smart grid in large-scale system solving.Fil: Alvarez, Gonzalo Exequiel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo y Diseño. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo y Diseño; Argentin

A secure food supply chain solution: blockchain and IoT-enabled container to enhance the efficiency of shipment for strawberry supply chain

The supply chain systems in the food industry are complex, including manufacturers, dealers, and customers located in different areas. Currently, there is a lack of transparency in the distribution and transaction processes of online food trade. The global food supply chain industry has enormous hurdles because of this problem, as well as a lack of trust among individuals in the sector and a reluctance to share information. This study aims to develop a blockchain-based strawberry supply chain (SSC) framework to create a transparent and secure system for tracking the movement of strawberries from the farm to the consumer. Using Ethereum smart contracts, the proposed solution monitors participant interactions, triggers events, and logs transactions to promote transparency and informed decision-making. The smart contracts also govern interactions between vendors and consumers, such as monitoring the status of Internet of Things (IoT) containers for food supply chains and notifying consumers. The proposed framework can be extended to other supply chain industries in the future to increase transparency and immutability

Blockchain adoption in the maritime supply chain: Examining barriers and salient stakeholders in containerized international trade

YesThis study aimed to investigate the relationships between blockchain adoption barriers and identified the salient stakeholders for blockchain adoption in containerized international trade. The interpretative structural modelling and Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification analyses indicated that the most impactful among the eight barriers are lack of support from influential stakeholders, lack of understanding regarding blockchain, and lack of government regulations. The stakeholder mapping analysis demonstrated that the high salient stakeholders among 11 legitimate stakeholders are container lines, ports, beneficial cargo owners, freight forwarders/third party logistics, and customs authorities. The study is original and contributes to theory and practice as it uncovers both impactful barriers and critical stakeholders by adopting a stakeholder theory perspective and offers significant implications to practice, policy, and theory by combining these two analyses