Securing the Supply Chain with Blockchain and IoT

Supply chain management is complex due to the involvement of multiple parties and diverse sources. It involves multiple suppliers, risk management, transportation, diverse skill sets, finance, and multiple agencies to control the product quality and timely delivery with the hope of satisfying the end customers without making any losses. It is very challenging to guarantee quality and maintain transparency, authenticity, fraud-free, and tamper-proof delivery when the supply chain involves multiple stakeholders and when the items are grown or sourced somewhere for global population consumption. So, this chapter aims to summarize the current knowledge, identify gaps, and synthesize results to provide insights on securely auditable supply chains. The work addresses security threats and their vulnerabilities in the supply chain and explores the choices for entrepreneurial strategies, and last-mile problems. In such a dynamic system, a securely automated Internet of Things coupled with blockchain technology can provide visibility of the condition of every item’s journey along the supply chain making the system’s processes auditable securely. The work evaluates the quality and relevance of secure auditability of the supply chain activities by exploring the steps involved to ensure its validity and reliability.