Smart contract based framework to increase transparency of manufacturing networks

Abstract Globalisation, shorter product life cycles, and increasing product varieties have led to complex supply chains. At the same time, there is a growing interest of customers and governments in having a greater transparency of brands, manufacturers, and producers throughout the supply chain. Due to the complex structure of collaborative manufacturing networks, the increase of supply chain transparency is a challenge for manufacturing companies. The blockchain technology offers an innovative solution to increase the transparency, security, authenticity, and auditability of products. However, there are still uncertainties when applying the blockchain technology to manufacturing scenarios and thus enable all stakeholders to trace back each component of an assembled product. This paper proposes a framework design to increase the transparency and auditability of products in collaborative manufacturing networks by adopting the blockchain technology. In this context, each component of a product is marked with a unique identification number generated by blockchain-based smart contracts. In this way, a transparent auditability of assembled products and their components can be achieved for all stakeholders, including the customer.