Blockchain in Supply Chain Traceability

Supply chain traceability is one of the most important problems faced by all organizations globally. Tracking any commodity is a tedious job and requires a lot of manual attention. The existing system uses a centralised database system to track a commodity. This approach is not efficient when several participants are involved. The participants in a supply chain do not trust each other hence having a central database can lead to tampering of data and single point of failure. We propose a more reliable and trusted solution, the use of blockchain in supply chain traceability. Blockchain is a decentralised, immutable ledger managed by a cluster of computers. The very nature of blockchain makes it suitable technology for traceability in a supply chain. Blockchain creates immutable records. Once a transaction is stored in the blockchain, it is impossible to tamper it illegally. This immutability of blockchain builds trust among the participants that conduct business in a lack of trust environment. Using consensus protocols, blockchain builds trust between the various participants. Blockchain provides traceability since immutable records are added in blockchain; it is easy to track the source of the product.