Resource-Oriented Approach for Effective Blockchain Integration in Intertwined Supply Chains

In the era of Industry 4.0, blockchain technology (BCT) is transforming supply chain collaboration. In scenarios involving intertwined supply chains, complexity increases as actors may engage with various BCTs. Each BCT has its own technological infrastructure and programming language for Smart Contracts. Furthermore, different technological solutions are engaged, in particular when dealing with large volume of information, to decide between on-chain and off-chain data storage is pivotal for saving costs and ensuring scalability. Therefore, an actor should be supported to abstract from details about the BCTs he/she is interacting with. Drawing from lessons learned with resource-oriented computing, we propose a methodological approach to design a resource-oriented architecture, to simplify interactions with Smart Contracts across various BCTs. This architecture supports the design of BCT-based solutions, coupled with external decentralized storage systems, to reduce costs and enhance scalability. Our experiments with an agri-food use case demonstrate the benefits of the approach to address BCTs integration issues.