Applying Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain Technology to Improve Traceability in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain
Wenqian Shao, Syed Imran Ali · Advances in human and social aspects of technology book series · 2022
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.