Using blockchain technology to extend the vendor managed inventory for sustainability

Abstract

Nowadays, Information Technology (IT) is changing the way traditional enterprise management concepts work. One of the most dominant IT achievements is the Blockchain Technology. This technology enables the distributed collaboration of stakeholders for their interactions while fulfilling the security and consensus rules among them. This paper has focused on the application of Blockchain technology to enhance one of traditional inventory management models. The Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) has been considered one of the most efficient mechanisms for vendor inventory planning by the suppliers. While VMI has brought competitive advantages for many industries, however its centralized mechanism limits the collaboration of a pool of suppliers and vendors simultaneously. This paper has studied the recent research for VMI application in industries and also has investigated the applications of Blockchain technology for decentralized collaboration of stakeholders. Focusing on sustainability issue for total supply chain consisting suppliers and vendors, it has proposed a Blockchain based VMI conceptual model. The different capabilities of this model for enabling the collaboration of stakeholders while maintaining the competitive advantages and sustainability issues have been discussed.

A Novel Supplier-Managed Inventory Order Assignment Platform Enabled by Blockchain Technology

“…Smart contracts enable auto-mated and transparent execution of transactions without the need for intermediaries, streamlining the ordering process and enhancing overall efficiency in SMI. [12,21]. Therefore, blockchain technology reinforces the principles of managed inventory, which include data sharing, transparency and traceability.…”

“…( 19) Shows the direction of balancing the model and ensures that the total amount of inventory is equal to the total amount of inventory that the supplier 𝑠 𝑡ℎ has allocated to the customer 𝑖 𝑡ℎ by the solver 𝑥 𝑡ℎ . (21) The total demand rate D must be equal to the sum of all the requests sent to the customer 𝑖 𝑡ℎ . ( 20) is a positive variable.…”