Blockchain for smart manufacturing systems: a survey
ISSN: 1750-614X
Article publication date: 19 November 2021
Issue publication date: 25 November 2022
Abstract
Purpose
Smart manufacturing is the prime gripper for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. Smart manufacturing systems (SMSs) largely determine how smart manufacturing evolves in technical and organizational dimensions and how it realizes values in products, production or services. SMSs are growing rapidly and receiving tons of attention from academic research and industrial practice. However, the development of SMSs is still in its fancy, and many issues wait to be identified and solved, such as single point failures, low transparency and ineffective resource sharing. Blockchain, an emerging technology deriving from Bitcoin, is competent to aid SMSs to conquer troubles due to its decentralization, traceability, trackability, disintermediation, auditability and etc. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the blockchain applications in SMSs, seek out the challenges faced by blockchain-enabled SMSs (BSMSs) and provide referable research directions and ideas.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive literature review as a survey is conducted in this paper. The survey starts by introducing blockchain concepts, followed by the descriptions of a literature review method and the blockchain applications throughout the product life cycle in SMSs. Then, the key issues and challenges confronting BSMSs are discussed and some possible research directions are also proposed. It finally presents qualitative and quantitative descriptions of BSMSs, along with some conclusions and implications.
Findings
The findings of this paper present a deep understanding about the current status and challenges of blockchain adoption in SMSs. Furthermore, this paper provides a brand new thinking for future research.
Originality/value
This paper minutely analyzes the impacts that blockchain exerts on SMSs in view of the product life cycle, and proposes using the complexity science thinking to deal with BSMSs qualitatively and quantitatively, including tackling the current major problems BSMSs face. This research can serve as a foundation for future theoretical studies and enterprise practice.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding information: Scientific and Technological Research Project of Education Department in Jiangxi Province (Grant No. GJJ180504), PhD Initiation Fund Project of School of Economics and Management in Jiangxi University of Science and Technology (Grant No. JGBS202102), PhD Initiation Fund Project of Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Scientific Planning Project of Culture and Art in Jiangxi Province (Grant No.YG2021170).
Citation
Song, Z. and Zhu, J. (2022), "Blockchain for smart manufacturing systems: a survey", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 1224-1253. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-04-2021-0152
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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