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Over the last two decades, the rapid advances in digitization methods put us on the fourth industrial era’s cusp. It is an era of connectivity and interactivity between various industrial processes that need a new, trusted environment to exchange and share information and data without relying on third parties. Blockchain technologies can provide such a trusted environment. This paper focuses on utilizing the blockchain with its characteristics to build machine-to-machine (M2M) communication and digital twin solutions. We propose a conceptual design for a system that uses smart contracts to construct digital twins for machines and products and executes manufacturing processes inside the blockchain. Our solution also employs the decentralized identifiers standard (DIDs) to provide self-sovereign digital identities for machines and products. To validate the approach and demonstrate its applicability, the paper presents an actual implementation of the proposed design to a simulated case study done with the help of Fischertechnik factory model.
As part of the research project Trusted Blockchains for the Open, Smart Energy Grid of the Future (tbiEnergy), one of the objectives is to investigate how a holistic blockchain approach for the realization of a local energy market could be accomplished and how corresponding hardware security mechanisms can be integrated. This paper provides an overview of the implemented prototype and describes the system and its processes.
Procurement processes are deemed to lack supporting digital technologies that raise efficiency and automation.
Blockchain solutions are piloted in procurement in order to offer a decentralized IT infrastructure covering these needs. This paper aims at identifying current blockchain approaches in the field of procurement and presenting affected business processes. In order to get an overview of the current state of the art, a systematic literature mapping is conducted.
Moreover, the out-comes are gathered and categorized in a classification scheme. Based on the analysis, systematic maps are presented to showcase relevant findings. Within the findings, several blockchain use cases in the field of procurement are identified and information about addressed challenges, utilized blockchain frameworks and affected business processes are extracted.
Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies are evolving into enabling infrastructures for innovative ICT-solutions. Numerous features, such as decentralization, programmability, and immutability of data, have led to a multitude of use cases that range from cryptocurrencies, tracking and tracing to automated business protocols or decentralized autonomous systems. For organizations that seek blockchain adoption, the overwhelming spectrum of potential application areas requires guidance reducing complexity and support the development of blockchain-based concepts. This paper introduces a classification approach to provide design and implementation guidance that goes beyond current textbook classifications. As an outcome, a typology for management and business architects is developed, before the paper concludes with an instantiation of existing use cases and a discussion of their classes.
Reputation is indispensable for online business since it supports customers in their buying decisions and allows sellers to justify premium prices. While IS research has investigated reputation systems mainly as review systems on online platforms for business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions, no proper solutions have been developed for business-to-business (B2B) transactions yet. We use blockchain technology to propose a new class of reputation systems that apply ratings as voluntary bonus payments: Before a transaction is performed, customers commit to pay a bonus that is granted if a service provider has performed a service properly. As opposed to rival reputation systems that build on cumulated ratings or reviews, our system enables monetized reputation mechanisms that are inextricably linked with online transactions. We expect this system class to provide more trustworthy ratings, which might reduce agency costs and serve quality providers to establish a reputation towards new customers.
Mapping identities, digital assets, and people’s profiles on the internet is getting much traction in the blockchain cosmos lately. The new technology is currently forming architectures that will further pave new ways to reach fundamental mechanisms to interact in a decentralized, user-centered manner. These schemes are often declared as the next generation of the web. Within the article will be shown, how the internet has evolved in managing identities, what problems arose, and how new data architectures help build applications on top of privacy rights. Both technological and ethical perspectives are viewed to answer which guidelines should be considered to fulfill the upcoming branch of decentralized services and what we can learn from historical schemes regarding their privacy, accounting, and user data.
The financial world of blockchains is mostly covered by Bitcoin, taking up about 210 billion dollars in market cap. Despite the huge security and independence which the technology offers to the users, it's not quite easy to adapt with upcoming applications due to the regulated infrastructure behind. For small-scale transactions, everyday use applications or the access to a variety of crypto technologies and projects, Bitcoin is relatively limited in future development. The compatibility for most of those applications is covering currencies from more development-driven blockchains like Ethereum. Those want to reach out for the user base that's already in hold of Bitcoins and offer them a seamless transition to new applications without the risk of losing their funds. Within the article, atomic swaps and tokenization are covered up and current approaches compared. Both mechanisms are used to fulfill this symbiosis between Bitcoin and Ethereum.
To get a more practical view, an example on how to implement such a tokenization within an app is shown. This will give deeper insights and offers inspiration for digital identity-based app development.
The topic of soulbound, non-transferable tokens is getting lots of interest within the blockchain space lately as decentralized societies become more tangible with Web3 social media applications and DAOs. In this article, I want to outline how such tokens function, their problems for adoption and standardization, and how they differ from verifiable credentials in the SSI field. As such soulbound assets will likely rely on extended recovery and asset management schemes to become viable identities that safely gain reputation and trust, features like social recovery and contract-based accounting are incorporated. By combining those new technologies and the theoretical crypto-native identity construct, the paper will give an impression of the future user-centric data economy.
The wind energy sector is undergoing digitalization processes that span multi-tier supply chains of turbine components and wind farm maintenance, amongst others. In an industrial use case that includes Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, Vestas and APQP4Wind, the processes of producing, fastening, and servicing bolts in turbines are mapped to a digital model. The model follows the lifetime of turbine bolts from the manufacturing phase, to fastening in turbines and maintenance, until their replacement and recycling. The development of the digital model is iteratively addressed in a design science research approach, as the authors actively contribute to the project. Distributed ledgers (DLs) support the notary documentation of the bolts and turbines, from their registration phase to the assembly-, technical service verification- and recycling phases. The immutable and decentralized nature of DLs secures the data against tampering and prevents any changes taken unilaterally by engaging the service stakeholders and component providers in a blockchain consortium.
In the field of Blockchain Technology applications and research, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have gained significant attention in recent years. Whilst current research is focused on NFT use cases or the purchase of NFTs from an investor’s perspective, the NFT launch (i.e. primary market) from a creator’s perspective remains uncovered. However, the launch strategy is considered to be an important factor for the success of a product. Therefore, our research paper aims to explore launch strategies of NFTs. Thereby, we discuss the marketing mix instruments price (i.e. pricing strategy), place (i.e. mint mechanism), and promotion. Through an empirical approach of conducting eight expert interviews, we examine parameters that are used to define an NFT launch strategy and assess their preference of different stakeholders.