TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring smart construction objects as blockchain oracles in construction supply chain management
AU - Lu, Weisheng
AU - Li, Xiao
AU - Xue, Fan
AU - Zhao, Rui
AU - Wu, Liupengfei
AU - Yeh, Anthony G.O.
N1 - Funding Information:
The work presented in this paper was financially supported by the Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC) with the Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) (No. ITP/029/20LP ). This funding source had no role in the design and conduction of this study. The authors wish to express their appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Blockchain technology has attracted the interest of the global construction industry for its potential to enhance the transparency, traceability, and immutability of construction data and enables collaboration and trust throughout the supply chain. However, such potential cannot be achieved without blockchain “oracles” needed to bridge the on-chain (i.e., blockchain system) and off-chain (i.e., real-life physical project) worlds. This study presents an innovative solution that exploits smart construction objects (SCOs). It develops a SCOs-enabled blockchain oracles (SCOs-BOs) framework. To instantiate this framework, the system architecture of a blockchain-enabled construction supply chain management (BCSCM) system is developed and validated using a case study, whereby four primary smart contracts are examined in the context of off-site logistics and on-site assembly services. The validation results show that accurate data is retrieved against malicious data in each request, and the corresponding reputation scores are successfully recorded. The innovativeness of the research lies in two aspects. In addition to mobilizing SCOs as blockchain oracles to bridge the on-chain and off-chain worlds, it develops a decentralized SCO network to avoid the single point of failure (SPoF) problem widely existing in blockchain systems. This study contributes to existing research and practice to harness the power of blockchain in construction.
AB - Blockchain technology has attracted the interest of the global construction industry for its potential to enhance the transparency, traceability, and immutability of construction data and enables collaboration and trust throughout the supply chain. However, such potential cannot be achieved without blockchain “oracles” needed to bridge the on-chain (i.e., blockchain system) and off-chain (i.e., real-life physical project) worlds. This study presents an innovative solution that exploits smart construction objects (SCOs). It develops a SCOs-enabled blockchain oracles (SCOs-BOs) framework. To instantiate this framework, the system architecture of a blockchain-enabled construction supply chain management (BCSCM) system is developed and validated using a case study, whereby four primary smart contracts are examined in the context of off-site logistics and on-site assembly services. The validation results show that accurate data is retrieved against malicious data in each request, and the corresponding reputation scores are successfully recorded. The innovativeness of the research lies in two aspects. In addition to mobilizing SCOs as blockchain oracles to bridge the on-chain and off-chain worlds, it develops a decentralized SCO network to avoid the single point of failure (SPoF) problem widely existing in blockchain systems. This study contributes to existing research and practice to harness the power of blockchain in construction.
KW - Blockchain
KW - Oracles
KW - Prefabricated construction
KW - Smart construction objects
KW - Smart contract
KW - Supply chain management
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108280022&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.autcon.2021.103816
DO - 10.1016/j.autcon.2021.103816
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85108280022
SN - 0926-5805
VL - 129
JO - Automation in Construction
JF - Automation in Construction
M1 - 103816
ER -