Abstract
Over the last few years, in light of the increasing level of cyber risks derived from the growing connectedness of Industry 4.0 has led to the emergence of blockchain/distributed ledger technology as a major innovation in supply chain cybersecurity. However, designing blockchain architectural frameworks for managing cyber risks is still challenging concerning cryptocurrency, privacy, security, and data sharing. As a result, this dissertation aims to deal with these limitations, supporting decision-making on preventing and mitigating cyber risks. It subsequently assesses the potential performance implications of integrating BDLT technologies in the supply chain to enhance the performance of specific business processes, such as logistical operations, delivery, and PoD, including performance measurement in the system architecture. The dissertation concludes that BDLTs have enormous potential to enhance the cybersecurity of a supply chain if the issues to its adoption are reinforced with favorable regulations and methods. In addition, this dissertation tested the system architecture in multiple Ethereum Virtual Machines in a node and with a single architecture type for improved operational performance in a company’s real-life PoD problem. The findings offer critical managerial insights for practitioners, consulting companies, and leading enterprises to be aware of the criticality and interplay of different influencing challenges and inter-relationships among them while implementing BDLTs in the Cyber Supply Chain Risk Management. At an operational level, it is possible to improve the supply chain performance monitoring with DLTs; and what it is more important, is the possibility to reduce uncertainty regarding the fairness of late delivery penalties and improve speed and trust, risk reduction, and flexibility.