A Blockchain-IoT Platform for the Smart Pallet Pooling Management

Pallet management as a backbone of logistics and supply chain activities is essential to supply chain parties, while a number of regulations, standards and operational constraints are considered in daily operations. In recent years, pallet pooling has been unconventionally advocated to manage pallet...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2021-09, Vol.21 (18), p.6310
Main Authors: Wu, Chun-Ho, Tsang, Yung-Po, Lee, Carman Ka-Man, Ching, Wai-Ki
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blockchain
Closed loop systems
Consortia
Cost analysis
decentralisation
Digital currencies
Feedback control
human–computer interaction
Industrial applications
Industrial wastes
Internet of Things
Logistics
pallet pooling
Pallets
Suppliers
Supply chains
Sustainability
Sustainable development
technological eco-system
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Summary:Pallet management as a backbone of logistics and supply chain activities is essential to supply chain parties, while a number of regulations, standards and operational constraints are considered in daily operations. In recent years, pallet pooling has been unconventionally advocated to manage pallets in a closed-loop system to enhance the sustainability and operational effectiveness, but pitfalls in terms of service reliability, quality compliance and pallet limitation when using a single service provider may occur. Therefore, this study incorporates a decentralisation mechanism into the pallet management to formulate a technological eco-system for pallet pooling, namely Pallet as a Service (PalletaaS), raised by the foundation of consortium blockchain and Internet of things (IoT). Consortium blockchain is regarded as the blockchain 3.0 to facilitate more industrial applications, except cryptocurrency, and the synergy of integrating a consortium blockchain and IoT is thus investigated. The corresponding layered architecture is proposed to structure the system deployment in the industry, in which the location-inventory-routing problem for pallet pooling is formulated. To demonstrate the values of this study, a case analysis to illustrate the human–computer interaction and pallet pooling operations is conducted. Overall, this study standardises the decentralised pallet management in the closed-loop mechanism, resulting in a constructive impact to sustainable development in the logistics industry.
ISSN:1424-8220
1424-8220
DOI:10.3390/s21186310