A hybrid peer-to-peer framework for supply chain visibility

Abstract

Current supply chain information systems are transaction-based and suffer from lack of real-time transparency. Furthermore, they are often centralized and therefore cannot adequately scale to include a large number of small and medium size companies. This thesis presents a hybrid peer-to-peer supply chain physical distribution framework (HP3D) that addresses these increasingly critical gaps in a global market. HP3D leverages the advantages of hybrid networks through flexible peers and a light-weight index server in order to share supply chain physical distribution information in pseudo real-time among stakeholders. The architecture of HP3D consists of a hierarchy of dynamic sub-networks that evolve based on market demands and digitize the transfer of goods between suppliers and customers. These sub-networks are created on demand, emulate the end-to-end movement of the shipment and terminate when the delivery of goods is completed. A variation of blockchain technology is also proposed in order to increase the security level of the proposed framework.