A Systematic Literature Review of Blockchain-Enabled Supply Chain Traceability Implementations

Abstract

In recent years, traceability systems have been developed as practical tools for improving supply chain (SC) transparency and visibility, especially in health and safety-sensitive sectors like food and pharmaceuticals. Blockchain-related SC traceability research has received significant attention during the last several years, and arguably blockchain is currently the most promising technology for providing traceability-related services in SC networks. This paper provides a systematic literature review of the various technical implementation aspects of blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems. We apply different drivers for classifying the selected literature, such as (a) the various domains of the available blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems and relevant methodologies applied; (b) the implementation maturity of these traceability systems along with technical implementation details; and (c) the sustainability perspective (economic, environmental, social) prevalent to these implementations. We provide key takeaways regarding the open issues and challenges of current blockchain traceability implementations and fruitful future research areas. Despite the significant volume and plethora of blockchain-enabled SC traceability systems, academia has so far focused on unstructured experimentation of blockchain-associated SC traceability solutions, and there is a clear need for developing and testing real-life traceability solutions, especially taking into account feasibility and cost-related SC aspects.