Applying Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain Technology to Improve Traceability in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain: A Review of the Benefits and Challenges

Applying Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain Technology to Improve Traceability in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain: A Review of the Benefits and Challenges

Wenqian Shao, Syed Imran Ali
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 30
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-5274-5.ch001
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Abstract

The combined application of IoT and blockchain technology helps organizations to better track and trace items in the food, manufacturing, and logistics supply chains. Evidence shows that the characteristics of blockchain such as decentralization, distributed ledger, consensus algorithm, data immutability, and data security has brought various benefits to supply chains. Specifically, the pharmaceutical supply chain has a high requirement of maintaining medicine quality, trust, and traceability across the supply chain. Hence, a thorough review on the topic is necessary to understand the scholarly work in this area. The study uses a systematic literature review (SLR) to extract data from Scopus database for the period 2017-2020. Fifty-six articles were reviewed. The descriptive and thematic analysis revealed various insights into themes, methods, benefits, challenges, and blockchain architecture in achieving traceability across the pharmaceutical supply chain.
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Background

Pharmaceutical Supply Chain

Cold chain management has a priority position in the context of the pharmaceutical supply chain (Hosseini Bamakan et al., 2021). A failure in controlling temperature will lead to a heavy ‘health threat and sources of economic loss’ (Vivaldi et al., 2020). The cold chain is operated in a strict environment to meet the temperature/humidity requirements in various packaging and across the supply chain that is from manufacturers to patients (Vivaldi et al., 2020; Cold Chain Federation, 2020).

Internet of Things (IoT) Technology

The IoT technologies allow logistics and supply chains to establish a real and virtually connected network to ‘identify, connect, adapt, localize, track and monitor to improve the efficiency (Golpîra et al., 2021). RFID and other technologies collect data in the traditional IoT-based supply chains, and cloud-based datasets are used for storing supply chain data (Golpîra et al., 2021).

Stakeholder’s View of IoTs

The functions of IoTs in the supply chain have gained appreciation and support from IoT stakeholders. In academia, Khan & Salah (2018) found huge potentiality and a promising perspective of the IoTs in the supply chain. In the business, HUAWEI and DHL planned a business corporation on the IoTs and supply chain (Wei, 2018). DHL gave a positive attitude to IoTs and logistics that ‘Digitalization isn’t just a vision or program at DHL Supply Chain; it's a reality for us and our customers, and it’s adding value to our operations on the ground’(Wei, 2018). Also, HUAWEI gave a positive attitude to IoTs and cooperation amongst stakeholders (Wei, 2018). In the field of the consultant industry, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) thinks that IoT is a fundamental component in the new industrial transformation to deliver higher efficiency and value to customers (BCG Global, 2021).

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