Integrating Blockchain with ERP for a Transparent Supply Chain

Supply chain is complex today. Multi-echelon, highly disjointed, and geographically spread are some of the cornerstones of today’s supply chain. All these together with different governmental policies and human behavior make it almost impossible to probe incidents and trace events in case of supply chain disruptions. In effect, an end-to-end supply chain, from the most basic raw material to the final product in a customer’s possession, is opaque. The inherent cost involved in managing supply chain intermediaries, their reliability, traceability, and transparency further complicate the supply chain. The solution to such complicated problems lies in improving supply chain transparency. This is now possible with the concept of blockchain. The usage of blockchain in a financial transaction is well known. This paper reviews blockchain technology, which is changing the face of supply chain and bringing in transparency and authenticity. This paper first discusses the history and evolution of blockchain from the bitcoin network, and goes on to explore the protocols. The author takes a deep dive into the design of blockchain, exploring its five pillars and three-layered architecture, which enables most of the blockchains today. With the architecture, the author focuses on the applications, use cases, road map, and challenges for blockchain in the supply chain domain as well as the synergy of blockchain with enterprise applications. It analyzes the integration of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system of the supply chain domain with blockchain. It also explores the three distinct growth areas: ERP-blockchain supply chain use cases, the middleware for connecting the blockchain with ERP, and blockchain as a service (BaaS). The paper ends with a brief conclusion and a discussion.