Blockchain Supply Chain Traceability for IoT Component Provenance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Tracing the source of components in a supply chain for IoT devices is challenging due to each supplier maintaining its own records, making it difficult to identify defects and ensure quality or safety, especially when components are sourced from multiple suppliers across different parts of the world.
Innovation Solution
A blockchain-based system is implemented to administer the supply chain, where each component is assigned a distributed ledger ID, along with additional information like serial number, date of manufacture, location, and source ID, enabling suppliers to publish transactions and manufacturers to review them, ensuring traceability and accountability.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If each supplier maintains its own records about components, then each supplier can control and manage its own inventory and transactions, but it becomes difficult to trace the root cause of defects and monitor the complete supply chain
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges individual supplier records into a single centralized database that tracks all components throughout the entire supply chain. This unified database allows any participant to access complete provenance information for any component, enabling end-to-end traceability while maintaining individual supplier autonomy in managing their own transactions.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a centralized database as an intermediary system that mediates between individual suppliers and the final manufacturer. This intermediary consolidates data from multiple suppliers, enabling traceability without requiring direct integration between each supplier's systems, thus reducing overall system complexity.
2Adaptability or versatility
If components are sourced from multiple suppliers located in different parts of the world, then supply chain diversity and options increase, but tracing the source of components becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The centralized database provides universal access to provenance information for components from any supplier, regardless of location. The system handles multiple suppliers and global components through a single unified interface, ensuring that traceability capabilities remain consistent and accessible across diverse supply chain sources without information loss.
Data Source
AI summary
A supply chain for a batch of identical units is provided. The supply chain includes database architecture. The batch of units may include a distributed ledger (blockchain) identification (ID), and at least two additional pieces of information. The information includes a serial number of the batch, a location of manufacture of the batch, an ID associated with the source of the batch, and/or the ID(s) of one or more components of each unit in the batch. The supply chain may include a private database supplier key. The supplier key enables publishing of batch transaction information onto a blockchain. The information may include a transfer of control of the batch from the supplier to a receiver-manufacturer. The supply chain may further include a private database receiver-manufacturer key associated with each batch associated with the receiver-manufacturer. The private database manufacturer key enables the receiver-manufacturer to review transactions associated with each batch.