The ability to look into the supply chain has long enticed SCM scholars and practitioners. The possibilities created by such visibility are endless—from risk reduction and continuity planning to inventory management and cost reduction, nothing is off the table when end‐to‐end visibility is a possibility. Because of such enticements, there is usually much buzz in the industry every time a new technology that promises visibility and transparency is brought forward. Yet, years later, stories sometimes emerge that said technologies either failed to deliver or were not everything they were made out to be. Blockchain is yet another emerging technology in this space. Some consultants promise that it will be the final answer to the transparency and visibility woes that companies currently face. Yet, there is little empirical investigation regarding how the technology may benefit adopters, what the bottlenecks may be, and to what extent it may be able to deliver on these promises, without massive system‐wide upgrades of extant hardware and computing prowess. The current study takes a step in this direction by investigating a blockchain‐driven proof of concept across an industry consortium to identify promises, possibilities, and challenges of blockchain.

中文翻译：

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通过区块链寻求供应链透明性：两个序列化数据项目的经验教训

研究供应链的能力长期以来一直吸引着供应链管理学者和从业者。这种可见性带来的可能性是无限的-从降低风险和进行连续性计划到库存管理和降低成本，当端到端可见性成为可能时，一切都摆在桌面上。由于这种吸引力，每次提出保证可见性和透明度的新技术时，行业中通常都会嗡嗡作响。但是，几年后，有时会出现一些故事，说技术要么无法交付，要么就不是它们应有的一切。区块链是该领域的另一种新兴技术。一些顾问承诺，这将是公司当前面临的透明度和可见性问题的最终答案。然而，无需进行大规模的系统范围内现有硬件和计算能力升级，就很少有关于该技术如何使采用者受益，瓶颈可能是什么以及该技术能够在多大程度上兑现这些承诺的经验调查。当前的研究朝着这个方向迈出了一步，它研究了整个行业财团中由区块链驱动的概念证明，以识别区块链的前景，可能性和挑战。