Blockchain Technology: Revolutionizing Supply Chain Management

The purpose of this thesis research project is to explore blockchain technology and its present and future applications within supply chain management. Emerging blockchain technologies, both public and private, are already showing great promise for a number of applications in and outside supply chain management. Our sole focus is to understand the fundamentals of blockchain, smart contracts, current applications in supply chain, and the future possibilities for blockchain to shape global supply chains. Many have theorized about how private blockchains can be implemented and used; however, there is little research to date that has collected and explored the actual use cases in industry today. The mission of this research paper is to separate theory from the current state of the technology and provide a clearer understanding of where the technology is headed in the near future. We aim to produce a work that will provide a comprehensive description and commentary on current use cases for the education of students and industry professionals alike. With any new technological developments, terminology and technicalities can be paralyzing, and this is particularly true for blockchain technology. For this project, our goal was to create a document that cuts through the complexities and allows a non-technical audience to gain a strong foundational understanding of blockchain's potential and current limitations within supply chains. Provided this, some highly technical concepts and implementation details will not be explored due to the complexity and minimal understanding even amongst industry experts. As future supply chain professionals, we are motivated to further our understanding of blockchain technologies and the potential for this technology to shape the future of supply chain management.