Evaluating Blockchain requirements for effective digital supply chain management

Collapsing traditional supply chain (SC) nodes into digitally interconnected networks creates several opportunities for efficiency, cost savings, and SC traceability. Blockchain is one of the pioneering transformative 4.0 technologies and is seen as the backbone of digital SCs (DSCs). Several attempts have been made to create explorative designs or models, however, forming a strategic Blockchain vision remains a challenge. This paper specifies those customer needs and design requirements that should be prioritized with a systematic approach for effective Blockchain integration into SCs. The proposed functional methodology provides a practical roadmap for practitioners. It is based on the House of Quality (HoQ) method, with its customer-focused design aspect, utilizing a group decision making (GDM) approach with an incomplete intuitionistic fuzzy relation (IIFR) extension. The GDM approach is employed to overcome the biases of decision making, while IIFRs deal with different or complementary focus centers in qualitative data. The usefulness of this methodology is tested with an application, and the results are validated by experts in the field. The results indicate that a Blockchain-based DSC (BC-DSC) is expected to deliver continuing financial benefit, efficient use of time, and the ability to support. Automation, effective coordination, and conformity are identified as highly critical design requirements. GDM and IIFR are combined for the first time in the literature. The originality of this paper comes from its generation of critical factors geared to obtaining an effective BC-DSC structure and the implementation of HoQ as an efficient tool for design.