Background: Blockchain is a digitally managed, distributed, and decentralized ledger used to record transactions in an immutable format. Its characteristics in providing trust, transparency, and traceability make it attractive for applications where transactions are involved. Originally intended to support financial transactions, the technology has gained attention even in non-financial sectors such as health care, manufacturing, retail, and government services. Methods: For centuries, the various functions of manufacturing industries have worked based on the relationship and trust that they have with their upstream and downstream stakeholders. In addition, as the conventional factories are growing into giant gigafactories, the participation of several intermediaries further complicates the supply chain and logistics operations. Hence, the article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the role of blockchain technology in addressing supply chain and logistics-related challenges by analyzing, organizing, and reviewing the literature. Results: The study shows that blockchain technology can transform the supply chain and logistics into secure, agile, trusted, and transparent functions. A conceptualized application scenario demonstrates the benefits of blockchain technology in providing provenance and traceability to critical products. Conclusions: In particular, a private or permissioned blockchain is suitable for multi-organizational businesses such as supply chain and logistics. In addition, IoT-blockchain integration, smart contracts, and asset tracking has immense benefits in the future.

The Industrial Revolution can be termed as the transformation of traditional industrial practices into new techniques dominated by the technologies available at that time. The first three industrial revolutions were driven respectively by mechanization, electrification, and automation which had gradually transformed the agrarian economy into a manufacturing-based economy. It helped in enhancing the lifestyle of the factory workers and the healthcare system, which improved the overall quality of living. The industries that adapted to the change witnessed a tremendous increase in the production of goods, competitive advantage, and cross-border business opportunities. While we are currently living to see the fourth industrial revolution (also known as Industry 4.0) unfolding around us, the world is poised for the next big leap, the fifth industrial revolution or Industry 5.0. Hence, the first half of the paper outlines the enabling technologies of Industry 4.0 and conceptualizes how they would act as the foundation for the fifth industrial revolution. The socio-economic challenges of the technologies and the need for Industry 5.0 technologies are also discussed. The second half of the paper outlines the prospective technologies of Industry 5.0, their potential applications from the perspective of industry leaders and scholars and conceptualizes how they can overcome the challenges of Industry 4.0. The definition of “sustainability trilemma” a new term coined by the authors, and the reasoning for calling the next industrial revolution “Industry 4.0S” (another new term) rather than Industry 5.0 are also presented.

The supply chain ecosystem is becoming fragile and more difficult to manage due to the complexities in various interlinked functions such as planning, procurement, production, logistics, distribution, and sales. Recently, the organizations have started embarking on “Industry 4.0 technologies”, a name used to denote the transformative new-age digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), automation and robotics, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, Big Data Analytics (BDA), and blockchain to support faster decision making, optimize the current practices, provide end-to-end transparency, increased collaboration, and superior warehouse management, which can collectively make it an “Intelligent supply chain”. However, the real benefits and challenges of adopting the technologies are not fully known, which requires a comprehensive understanding of the subject. Hence, the objective of the article is to review the various challenges associated with supply chain management and provide a broad overview of the role of Industry 4.0 technologies in addressing the challenges by analyzing, organizing, and reviewing the literature. In addition to the traditional complexities, the uncertainties arising from contemporary challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, war, natural calamities, shifting focus towards sustainability, and the need to have a future-proof supply chain are also discussed.