Blockchain interoperability issues in supply chain: exploration of mass adoption procedures

Today’s supply chains are becoming more data-driven with the impact of big data, but there are many challenges that need to be overcome in big data for better service operations management in supply chains. Blockchain has the great potential to improve big data services and applications with its decentralisation and security nature. However, blockchain interoperability is critical to realising more value creation in blockchain networks and achieving promising results for global supply chains that intersect with multiple business ecosystems and blockchain platforms. In addition, it is unclear how to address interoperability issues for mass adoption. In this chapter, a three-step approach is applied to analyse blockchain interoperability in supply chains for mass adoption. First, a literature review is conducted to explain blockchain technology and the widely used methodologies for blockchain interoperability in supply chains. Then, four real-case blockchain use cases in supply chains from different industry segments are analysed in terms of their technical capabilities addressing interoperability concerns. Finally, we discuss results of use case analysis based on the comments of interviewees. The analysis reveals that REST-APIs with a common interface and GS1 standards are very useful to integrate with blockchain applications in supply chains for mass adoption.