Blockchain Based Medical Records Management And Sharing — Complete Documentation & Simulation

Overview & System Context

Blockchain Based Medical Records Management And Sharing: Comprehensive Web-Sourced Technical Investigation Exhaustive Research Dossier · Pure Web-Scraped Content: ~8964 Words · Real Software Screenshots: 3 1. Executive Overview & Technical Background A blockchain is a distributed ledger with growing lists of records (blocks) that are securely linked together via cryptographic hashes. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data (generally represented as a Merkle tree, where data nodes are represented by leaves). Since each block contains information about the previous block, they effectively form a chain (viz. linked list data structure), with each additional block linking to the ones before it. Consequently, blockchain transactions are resistant to alteration because, once recorded, the data in any given block cannot be changed retroactively without altering all subsequent blocks and obtaining network consensus to accept these changes. Blockchains are typically managed by a peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network for use as a public distributed ledger, where nodes collectively adhere to a consensus algorithm protocol to add and validate new transaction blocks.

Although blockchain records are not unalterable, since blockchain forks are possible, blockchains may be considered secure by design and exemplify a distributed computing system with high Byzantine fault tolerance. A blockchain was created by a person (or group of people) using the name (or pseudonym) Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to serve as the public distributed ledger for bitcoin cryptocurrency transactions, based on previous work by Stuart Haber, W. Scott Stornetta, and Dave Bayer.

The implementation of the blockchain within bitcoin made it the first digital currency to solve the double-spending problem without the need for a trusted authority or central server. The bitcoin design has inspired other applications and blockchains that are readable by the public and are widely used by cryptocurrencies. The blockchain may be considered a type of payment rail. Private blockchains have been proposed for business use. Computerworld called the marketing of such privatized blockchains without a proper security model "snake oil"; however, others have argued that permissioned blockchains, if carefully designed, may be more decentralized and therefore more secure in practice than permissionless ones.

A blockchain is a decentralized, distributed, and often public, digital ledger consisting of records called blocks that are used to record transactions across many computers so that any involved block cannot be altered retroactively, without the alteration of all subsequent blocks. This allows the participants to verify and audit transactions independently and relatively inexpensively. A blockchain database is managed autonomously using a peer-to-peer network and a distributed timestamping server. They are authenticated by mass collaboration powered by collective self-interests. Such a design facilitates robust workflow where participants' uncertainty regarding data security is marginal. The use of a blockchain removes the characteristic of infinite reproducibility from a digital asset. It confirms that each unit of value was transferred only once, solving the long-standing problem of double-spending. A blockchain has been described as a value-exchange protocol. Logically, a blockchain can be seen as consisting of several layers: infrastructure (hardware) networking (node discovery, information propagation and verification) consensus (proof of work, proof of stake) data (blocks, transactions) application (smart contracts/decentralized applications, if applicable) Permissioned blockchains use an access control layer to govern who has access to the network. It has been argued that permissioned blockchains can guarantee a certain level of decentralization, if carefully designed, as opposed to permissionless blockchains, which are often centralized in practice.

Figure 1: Blockchain Based Electronic Healthcare Record System (EHRS) — An ... Blockchain-based smart contracts are contracts that can be partially or fully executed or enforced without human interaction. One of the main objectives of a smart contract is automated escrow. A key feature of smart contracts is that they do not need a trusted third party (such as a trustee) to act as an intermediary between contracting entities — the blockchain network executes the contract on its own. This may reduce friction between entities when transferring value and could subsequently open the door to a higher level of transaction automation. An IMF staff discussion from 2018 reported that smart contracts based on blockchain technology might reduce moral hazards and optimize the use of contracts in general, but "no viable smart contract systems have yet emerged." Due to the lack of widespread use, their legal status was unclear.

Blockchain technology, such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has been used in video games for monetization. Many live-service games offer in-game customization options, such as character skins or other in-game items, which the players can earn and trade with other players using in-game currency. Some games also allow for trading of virtual items using real-world currency, but this may be illegal in some countries where video games are seen as akin to gambling, and has led to gray market issues such as skin gambling, and thus publishers typically have shied away from allowing players to earn real-world funds from games. Blockchain games typically allow players to trade these in-game items for cryptocurrency, which can then be exchanged for money. The first known game to use blockchain technologies was CryptoKitties, launched in November 2017, where the player would purchase NFTs with Ethereum cryptocurrency, each NFT consisting of a virtual pet that the player could breed with others to create offspring with combined traits as new NFTs. The game made headlines in December 2017 when one virtual pet sold for more than US$100,000. CryptoKitties also illustrated scalability problems for games on Ethereum when it created significant congestion on the Ethereum network in early 2018 with approximately 30% of all Ethereum transactions being for the game. By the early 2020s, there had not been a breakout success in video games using blockchain, as these games tend to focus on using blockchain for speculation instead of more traditional forms of gameplay, which offers limited appeal to most players. Such games also represent a high risk to investors as their revenues can be difficult to predict. However, limited successes of some games, such as Axie Infinity during the COVID-19 pandemic, and corporate plans towards metaverse content, refueled interest in the area of GameFi, a term describing the intersection of video games and financing typically backed by blockchain currency, in the second half of 2021.

Several major publishers, including Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Take Two Interactive, have stated that blockchain and NFT-based games are under serious consideration for their companies in the future. In October 2021, Valve Corporation banned blockchain games, including those using cryptocurrency and NFTs, from being hosted on its Steam digital storefront service, which is widely used for personal computer gaming, claiming that this was an extension of their policy banning games that offered in-game items with real-world value. Valve's prior history with gambling, specifically skin gambling, was speculated to be a factor in the decision to ban blockchain games. Journalists and players responded positively to Valve's decision as blockchain and NFT games have a reputation for scams and fraud among most PC gamers, and Epic Games, which runs the Epic Games Store in competition to Steam, said that they would be open to accepted blockchain games in the wake of Valve's refusal.

There have been several different efforts to employ blockchains in supply chain management. Precious commodities mining — Blockchain technology has been used for tracking the origins of gemstones and other precious commodities. In 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported that the blockchain technology company Everledger was partnering with IBM's blockchain-based tracking service to trace the origin of diamonds to ensure that they were ethically mined. As of 2019, the Diamond Trading Company (DTC) has been involved in building a diamond trading supply chain product called Tracer. Food supply — As of 2018, Walmart and IBM were running a trial to use a blockchain-backed system for supply chain monitoring for lettuce and spinach – all nodes of the blockchain were administered by Walmart and located on the IBM cloud. Fashion industry — There is an opaque relationship between brands, distributors, and customers in the fashion industry, which prevents the sustainable and stable development of the fashion industry. Blockchain could make this information transparent, assisting sustainable development of the industry. Motor vehicles — Mercedes-Benz and partner Icertis developed a blockchain prototype used to facilitate consistent documentation of contracts along the supply chain so that the ethical standards and contractual obligations required of its direct suppliers can be passed on to second tier suppliers and beyond. In another project, the company uses blockchain technology to track the emissions of climate-relevant gases and the amount of secondary material along the supply chain for its battery cell manufacturers.

Figure 2: SmartMeds: Blockchain based Hospital Management System - YouTube 2. System Architecture & Core Working Principles Blockchain technology can be used to create a permanent, public, transparent ledger system for compiling data on sales, tracking digital use and payments to content creators, such as wireless users or musicians. The Gartner 2019 CIO Survey reported 2% of higher education respondents had launched blockchain projects and another 18% were planning academic projects in the next 24 months. In 2017, IBM partnered with ASCAP and PRS for Music to adopt blockchain technology in music distribution. Imogen Heap's Mycelia service has also been proposed as a blockchain-based alternative "that gives artists more control over how their songs and associated data circulate among fans and other musicians." New distribution methods are available for the insurance industry such as peer-to-peer insurance, parametric insurance and microinsurance following the adoption of blockchain. The sharing economy and IoT are also set to benefit from blockchains because they involve many collaborating peers. The use of blockchain in libraries is being studied with a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services. Other blockchain designs include Hyperledger, a collaborative effort from the Linux Foundation to support blockchain-based distributed ledgers, with projects under this initiative including Hyperledger Burrow (by Monax) and Hyperledger Fabric (spearheaded by IBM). Another is Quorum, a permissioned private blockchain by JPMorgan Chase with private storage, used for contract applications. Oracle introduced a blockchain table feature in its Oracle 21c database.

Blockchain is also being used in peer-to-peer energy trading. Blockchain and distributed ledger technologies have been investigated for managing access permissions, consent, provenance and audit trails in health care. A 2026 scoping review of 892 studies found that most involved prototypes or simulated evaluations, while evidence of sustained real-world implementation remained limited. Lightweight blockchains, or simplified blockchains, are more suitable for internet of things (IoT) applications than conventional blockchains. One experiment suggested that a lightweight blockchain-based network could accommodate up to 1.34 million authentication processes every second, which could be sufficient for resource-constrained IoT networks. Blockchain could be used in detecting counterfeits by associating unique identifiers to products, documents and shipments, and storing records associated with transactions that cannot be forged or altered. It is however argued that blockchain technology needs to be supplemented with technologies that provide a strong binding between physical objects and blockchain systems, as well as provisions for content creator verification ala KYC standards.

The EUIPO established an Anti-Counterfeiting Blockathon Forum, with the objective of "defining, piloting and implementing" an anti-counterfeiting infrastructure at the European level. The Dutch Standardisation organisation NEN uses blockchain together with QR Codes to authenticate certificates. Beijing and Shanghai are among the cities designated by China to trial blockchain applications as January 30, 2022. In Chinese legal proceedings, blockchain technology was first accepted as a method for authenticating internet evidence by the Hangzhou Internet Court in 2019 and has since been accepted by other Chinese courts.

In October 2014, the MIT Bitcoin Club, with funding from MIT alumni, provided undergraduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology access to $100 of bitcoin. The adoption rates, as studied by Catalini and Tucker (2016), revealed that when people who typically adopt technologies early are given delayed access, they tend to reject the technology. Many universities have founded departments focusing on crypto and blockchain, including MIT, in 2017. In the same year, Edinburgh became "one of the first big European universities to launch a blockchain course", according to the Financial Times.

The need for internal audits to provide effective oversight of organizational efficiency will require a change in the way that information is accessed in new formats. Blockchain adoption requires a framework to identify the risk of exposure associated with transactions using blockchain. The Institute of Internal Auditors has identified the need for internal auditors to address this transformational technology. New methods are required to develop audit plans that identify threats and risks. The Internal Audit Foundation study, Blockchain and Internal Audit, assesses these factors. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has outlined new roles for auditors as a result of blockchain.

In September 2015, the first peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology research, Ledger, was announced. The inaugural issue was published in December 2016. The journal covers aspects of mathematics, computer science, engineering, law, economics and philosophy that relate to cryptocurrencies. The journal encourages authors to digitally sign a file hash of submitted papers, which are then timestamped into the bitcoin blockchain.

Authors are also asked to include a personal bitcoin address on the first page of their papers for non-repudiation purposes. Figure 3: Electronic Health Record Management using Blockchain | Devpost Changelog – a record of all notable changes made to a project Checklist – an informational aid used to reduce failure Economics of digitization Git – a version control system where the commit hash value depends on the previous commit hash value, also with Merkle tree inside List of blockchains Privacy and blockchain Real-World Assets Version control – a record of all changes (mostly of software project) in a form of a graph In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) deals with a system of procurement (purchasing raw materials/components), operations management, logistics and marketing channels, through which raw materials can be developed into finished products and delivered to their end customers. A more narrow definition of supply chain management is the "design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronising supply with demand and measuring performance globally". This can include the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, finished goods, and end-to-end order fulfilment from the point of origin to the point of consumption. Interconnected, interrelated or interlinked networks, channels and node businesses combine in the provision of products and services required by end customers in a supply chain. SCM is the broad range of activities required to plan, control and execute a product's flow from materials to production to distribution in the most economical way possible. SCM encompasses the integrated planning and execution of processes required to optimize the flow of materials, information and capital in functions that broadly include demand planning, sourcing, production, inventory management and logistics—or storage and transportation. Supply chain management strives for an integrated, multidisciplinary, multi-method approach. Research in supply chain management focuses on topics such as resilience, sustainability, and risk management, among others. Some suggest that the "people dimension" of SCM, ethical issues, internal integration, transparency/visibility, and human capital or talent management are topics that have been underrepresented on the research agenda. Supply chain management, techniques with the aim of coordinating all parts of SC, from supplying raw materials to delivering and/or resumption of products, tries to minimize total costs with respect to existing conflicts among the chain partners. An example of these conflicts is the interrelation between the sale department desiring to have higher inventory levels to fulfill demands and the warehouse for which lower inventories are desired to reduce holding costs.

The management of upstream and downstream value-added flows of materials, final goods, and related information among suppliers, company, resellers, and final consumers. The systematic, strategic coordination of traditional business functions and tactics across all business functions within a particular company and across businesses within the supply chain, for the purposes of improving the long-term performance of the individual companies and the supply chain as a whole. A customer-focused definition is given by Hines (2004:p76): "Supply chain strategies require a total systems view of the links in the chain that work together efficiently to create customer satisfaction at the end point of delivery to the consumer. As a consequence, costs must be lowered throughout the chain by driving out unnecessary expenses, movements, and handling.

The main focus is turned to efficiency and added value, or the end user's perception of value. Efficiency must be increased, and bottlenecks removed. The measurement of performance focuses on total system efficiency and the equitable monetary reward distribution to those within the supply chain. The supply chain system must be responsive to customer requirements." The integration of key business processes across the supply chain for the purpose of creating value for customers and stakeholders. According to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), supply chain management encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing, procurement, conversion, and logistics management. It also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which may be suppliers, intermediaries, third-party service providers, or customers. Supply chain management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies. More recently, the loosely coupled, self-organizing network of businesses that cooperate to provide product and service offerings has been called the Extended Enterprise. Mentzer et al. make a further distinction between "supply chain management" and a "supply chain orientation". The latter term involves a recognition that a business strategy cannot be fulfilled without managing the activities of suppliers and customers upstream and downstream, whereas the former term is used for "the actual implementation of this orientation". Supply chain visibility, in its origins, was concerned with knowledge of the location, production stage and expected delivery date of incoming products and materials, so that production could be planned, but the development of the term has enabled it to be used to plan orders using knowledge of potential supplies, and to track post-production processes as far as delivery to customers. The concept of a "supply chain control tower" reflects the "end-to-end visibility" provided by an air traffic control tower. Writing for Gartner, Ashutosh Gupta sees a "supply chain control tower" as a concept which combines the capacities of "people, process, data, organization and technology" to improve supply chain visibility, noting that the technology behind a system which draws together information from a number of sources should not be separated from the people and processes it supports in order to improve visibility.

The UK Government also uses the term "supply chain visibility" in conjunction with its mandate to ensure that potential suppliers have visibility into future supply opportunities. The government's action note on supply chain visibility covers obligations and appropriate contractual wording requiring prime suppliers to advertise sub-contracting opportunities and to report on their spend with small and medium-sized enterprises and voluntary/community organisations within their supply chains. Supply chain management software includes tools or modules used to execute supply chain transactions, manage supplier relationships, and control associated business processes. The overall goal of the software is to improve supply chain performance by monitoring a company's supply chain network from end-to-end (suppliers, transporters, returns, warehouses, retailers, manufacturers, and customers). In some cases, a supply chain includes the collection of goods after consumer use for recycling or the reverse logistics processes for returning faulty or unwanted products back to producers up the value chain.

The importance of supply chain management proved crucial in the 2019-2020 fight against the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that swept across the world. During the pandemic period, governments in countries which had in place effective domestic supply chain management had enough medical supplies to support their needs and enough to donate their surplus to front-line health workers in other jurisdictions. The devastating COVID-19 crisis in US has turned many sectors of the local economy upside down, including the country's storied logistics industry. Some organizations were able to quickly develop foreign supply chains in order to import much needed medical supplies. Cross-border supply chains can increase political risk.

3. Software Implementation, Frameworks & Protocols recognising a company's supply chain as a strategic asset an end-to-end approach to the supply chain design for performance building an appropriate collaboration model, and using metrics to drive business success. SCM components are the third element of the four-square circulation framework. The level of integration and management of a business process link is a function of the number and level of components added to the link. Consequently, adding more management components or increasing the level of each component can increase the level of integration of the business process link. Literature on business process reengineering, buyer-supplier relationships, and SCM suggests various possible components that should receive managerial attention when managing supply relationships. Lambert and Cooper (2000) identified the following components: Planning and control Work structure Organization structure Product flow facility structure Information flow facility structure Management methods Power and leadership structure Risk and reward structure Culture and attitude However, a more careful examination of the existing literature leads to a more comprehensive understanding of what should be the key critical supply chain components, or "branches" of the previously identified supply chain business processes—that is, what kind of relationship the components may have that are related to suppliers and customers. Bowersox and Closs (1996) state that the emphasis on cooperation represents the synergism leading to the highest level of joint achievement. A primary-level channel participant is a business that is willing to participate in responsibility for inventory ownership or assume other financial risks, thus including primary level components. A secondary-level participant (specialized) is a business that participates in channel relationships by performing essential services for primary participants, including secondary level components, which support primary participants. Third-level channel participants and components that support primary-level channel participants and are the fundamental branches of secondary-level components may also be included. Consequently, Lambert and Cooper's framework of supply chain components does not lead to any conclusion about what are the primary- or secondary-level (specialized) supply chain components, i.e. which supply chain components should be viewed as primary or secondary, how these components should be structured in order to achieve a more comprehensive supply chain structure, or how to examine the supply chain as an integrative one.

expert and referent power sources lent themselves to "significant positive effects" on supply chain relationships; reward power had a somewhat beneficial impact coercive and legal/legitimate power bases, which they describe as "completely mediated power strategies", led to "significant negative relationships". They concluded that "prudent use of power" can be beneficial for both the power source and the power target.

Successful SCM requires a change from managing individual functions to integrating activities into key supply chain processes. In an example scenario, a purchasing department places orders as its requirements become known. The marketing department, responding to customer demand, communicates with several distributors and retailers as it attempts to determine ways to satisfy this demand. Information shared between supply chain partners can only be fully leveraged through business process integration, e.g., using electronic data interchange. Supply chain business process integration involves collaborative work between buyers and suppliers, joint product development, common systems, and shared information.

According to Lambert and Cooper (2000), operating an integrated supply chain requires a continuous information flow. However, in many companies, management has concluded that optimizing product flows cannot be accomplished without implementing a process approach. The key supply chain processes as stated by Lambert (2004) are: Customer relationship management Customer service management Demand management Order fulfillment Manufacturing flow management Supplier relationship management Product development and commercialization Returns management Much has been written about demand management. Best-in-class companies have similar characteristics, which include the following: Internal and external collaboration Initiatives to reduce lead time Tighter feedback from customer and market demand Customer-level forecasting One could suggest other critical supply business processes that combine these processes stated by Lambert, such as: Customer service management process Customer relationship management concerns the relationship between an organization and its customers. Customer service is the source of customer information. It also provides the customer with real-time information on scheduling and product availability through interfaces with the company's production and distribution operations. Successful organizations use the following steps to build customer relationships: determine mutually satisfying goals for organization and customers establish and maintain customer rapport induce positive feelings in the organization and the customers Inventory management Inventory management is concerned with ensuring the right stock at the right levels, in the right place, at the right time and the right cost. Inventory management entails inventory planning and forecasting: forecasting helps planning inventory. Procurement process Strategic plans are drawn up with suppliers to support the manufacturing flow management process and the development of new products. In firms whose operations extend globally, sourcing may be managed on a global basis. The desired outcome is a relationship where both parties benefit and a reduction in the time required for the product's design and development. The purchasing function may also develop rapid communication systems, such as electronic data interchange (EDI) and internet linkage, to convey possible requirements more rapidly. Activities related to obtaining products and materials from outside suppliers involve resource planning, supply sourcing, negotiation, order placement, inbound transportation, storage, handling, and quality assurance, many of which include the responsibility to coordinate with suppliers on matters of scheduling, supply continuity (inventory), hedging, and research into new sources or programs. Procurement has recently been recognized as a core source of value, driven largely by the increasing trends to outsource products and services, and the changes in the global ecosystem requiring stronger relationships between buyers and sellers. Product development and commercialization Here, customers and suppliers must be integrated into the product development process in order to reduce the time to market. As product life cycles shorten, the appropriate products must be developed and successfully launched with ever-shorter time schedules in order for firms to remain competitive. According to Lambert and Cooper (2000), managers of the product development and commercialization process must: coordinate with customer relationship management to identify customer-articulated needs; select materials and suppliers in conjunction with procurement; and develop production technology in manufacturing flow to manufacture and integrate into the best supply chain flow for the given combination of product and markets. Integration of suppliers into the new product development process was shown to have a major impact on product target cost, quality, delivery, and market share. Tapping into suppliers as a source of innovation requires an extensive process characterized by development of technology sharing, but also involves managing intellectual property issues.

4. Practical Deployment, Analysis & Case Studies Manufacturing flow management process The manufacturing process produces and supplies products to the distribution channels based on past forecasts. Manufacturing processes must be flexible in order to respond to market changes and must accommodate mass customization. Orders are processes operating on a just-in-time (JIT) basis in minimum lot sizes.

Changes in the manufacturing flow process lead to shorter cycle times (cycle time compression), meaning improved responsiveness and efficiency in meeting customer demand. La Londe and Masters found in 1994 research that improved supply chain management and cycle time compression were complementary strategies adopted by forward-looking businesses in the United States. This process manages activities related to planning, scheduling, and supporting manufacturing operations, such as work-in-process storage, handling, transportation, and time phasing of components, inventory at manufacturing sites, and maximum flexibility in the coordination of geographical and final assemblies postponement of physical distribution operations. Physical distribution This concerns the movement of a finished product or service to customers. In physical distribution, the customer is the final destination of a marketing channel, and the availability of the product or service is a vital part of each channel participant's marketing effort. It is also through the physical distribution process that the time and space of customer service become an integral part of marketing. Thus it links a marketing channel with its customers (i.e., it links manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers). Fleet management Fleet management is the function within supply chain management that is responsible for overseeing a company's fleet of vehicles. This includes not only trucks and vans but also other assets like ships, planes, and specialized machinery. The primary goals are to ensure the efficient and safe operation of these assets, manage maintenance schedules, and control costs, particularly fuel consumption.

Modern fleet management is a key component of fleet digitalization. It relies heavily on telematics and vehicle tracking systems to provide real-time data on vehicle location, driver behavior, and engine diagnostics. This telemetry data is used to optimize routes, schedule predictive maintenance, and enhance the overall visibility and control of the physical distribution network.

Outsourcing/partnerships This includes not just the outsourcing of the procurement of materials and components, but also the outsourcing of services that traditionally have been provided in-house. The logic of this trend is that the company will increasingly focus on those activities in the value chain in which it has a distinctive advantage and outsource everything else. This movement has been particularly evident in logistics, where the provision of transport, storage, and inventory control is increasingly subcontracted to specialists or logistics partners. Also, managing and controlling this network of partners and suppliers requires a blend of central and local involvement: strategic decisions are taken centrally, while the monitoring and control of supplier performance and day-to-day liaison with logistics partners are best managed locally. Performance measurement Experts found a strong relationship from the largest arcs of supplier and customer integration to market share and profitability. Taking advantage of supplier capabilities and emphasizing a long-term supply chain perspective in customer relationships can both be correlated with a firm's performance. As logistics competency becomes a critical factor in creating and maintaining competitive advantage, measuring logistics performance becomes increasingly important, because the difference between profitable and unprofitable operations becomes narrower. A.T. Kearney Consultants (1985) noted that firms engaging in comprehensive performance measurement realized improvements in overall productivity. According to experts, internal measures are generally collected and analyzed by the firm, including cost, customer service, productivity, asset measurement, and quality. External performance is measured through customer perception measures and "best practice" benchmarking. Warehousing management To reduce a company's cost and expenses, warehousing management is concerned with storage, reducing manpower cost, dispatching authority with on time delivery, loading and unloading facilities with proper area, inventory management system etc. Workflow management Integrating suppliers and customers tightly into a workflow (or business process) and thereby achieving an efficient and effective supply chain is a key goal of workflow management.

Resource-based view (RBV) Transaction cost analysis (TCA) Knowledge-based view (KBV) Strategic choice theory (SCT) Agency theory (AT) Channel coordination Institutional theory (InT) Systems theory (ST) Network perspective (NP) Materials logistics management (MLM) Just-in-time (JIT) Material requirements planning (MRP) Theory of constraints (TOC) Total quality management (TQM) Agile manufacturing Time-based competition (TBC) Quick response manufacturing (QRM) Customer relationship management (CRM) Requirements chain management (RCM) Dynamic Capabilities Theory Dynamic Management Theory Available-to-promise (ATP) Supply Chain Roadmap Optimal Positioning of the Delivery Window (OPDW) However, the unit of analysis of most of these theories is not the supply chain but rather another system, such as the firm or the supplier-buyer relationship. Among the few exceptions is the relational view, which outlines a theory for considering dyads and networks of firms as a key unit of analysis for explaining superior individual firm performance (Dyer and Singh, 1998).

In 2010, Wal-Mart announced a big change in its sourcing strategy. Initially, Wal-Mart relied on intermediaries in the sourcing process. It bought only 20% of its stock directly, but the rest were bought through the intermediaries. Therefore, the company came to realize that the presence of many intermediaries in the product sourcing was actually increasing the costs in the supply chain. To cut these costs, Wal-Mart decided to do away with intermediaries in the supply chain and started direct sourcing of its goods from the suppliers. Eduardo Castro-Wright, the then Vice President of Wal-Mart, set an ambitious goal of buying 80% of all Wal-Mart goods directly from the suppliers. Walmart started purchasing fruits and vegetables on a global scale, where it interacted directly with the suppliers of these goods. The company later engaged the suppliers of other goods, such as cloth and home electronics appliances, directly and eliminated the importing agents. The purchaser, in this case Wal-Mart, can easily direct the suppliers on how to manufacture certain products so that they can be acceptable to the consumers. Thus, Wal-Mart, through direct sourcing, manages to get the exact product quality as it expects, since it engages the suppliers in the producing of these products, hence quality consistency. Using agents in the sourcing process in most cases lead to inconsistency in the quality of the products, since the agent's source the products from different manufacturers that have varying qualities. Wal-Mart managed to source directly 80% profit its stock; this has greatly eliminated the intermediaries and cut down the costs between 5-15%, as markups that are introduced by these middlemen in the supply chain are cut. This saves approximately $4–15 billion. This strategy of direct sourcing not only helped Wal-Mart in reducing the costs in the supply chain but also helped in the improvement of supply chain activities through boosting efficiency throughout the entire process. In other words, direct sourcing reduced the time that takes the company to source and stocks the products in its stock. The presence of the intermediaries elongated the time in the process of procurement, which sometimes led to delays in the supply of the commodities in the stores, thus, customers finding empty shelves. Wal-Mart adopted this strategy of sourcing through centralizing the entire process of procurement and sourcing by setting up four global merchandising points for general goods and clothing. The company instructed all the suppliers to bring their products to these central points that are located in different markets. The procurement team assesses the quality brought by the suppliers, buys the goods, and distributes them to various regional markets. The procurement and sourcing at centralized places helped the company to consolidate the suppliers. The company has established four centralized points, including an office in Mexico City and Canada. Just a mere piloting test on combining the purchase of fresh apples across the United States, Mexico, and Canada led to the savings of about 10%. As a result, the company intended to increase centralization of its procurement in North America for all its fresh fruits and vegetables. Thus, centralization of the procurement process to various points where the suppliers would be meeting with the procurement team is the latest strategy which the company is implementing, and signs show that this strategy is going to cut costs and also improve the efficiency of the procurement process. Strategic vendor partnerships is another strategy the company is using in the sourcing process. Wal-Mart realized that in order for it to ensure consistency in the quality of the products it offers to the consumers and also maintain a steady supply of goods in its stores at a lower cost, it had to create strategic vendor partnerships with the suppliers. Wal-Mart identified and selected the suppliers who met its demand and at the same time offered it the best prices for the goods. It then made a strategic relationship with these vendors by offering and assuring the long-term and high volume of purchases in exchange for the lowest possible prices. Thus, the company has managed to source its products from same suppliers as bulks, but at lower prices. This enables the company to offer competitive prices for its products in its stores, hence, maintaining a competitive advantage over its competitors whose goods are a more expensive in comparison. Another sourcing strategy Wal-Mart uses is implementing efficient communication relationships with the vendor networks; this is necessary to improve the material flow.

The company has all the contacts with the suppliers whom they communicate regularly and make dates on when the goods would be needed, so that the suppliers get ready to deliver the goods in time. The efficient communication between the company's procurement team and the inventory management team enables the company to source goods and fill its shelves on time, without causing delays and empty shelves. In other words, the company realized that in ensuring a steady flow of the goods into the store, the suppliers have to be informed early enough, so that they can act accordingly to avoid delays in the delivery of goods. Thus, efficient communication is another tool which Wal-Mart is using to make the supply chain be more efficient and to cut costs. Cross-docking is another strategy that Wal-Mart is using to cut costs in its supply chain.

Cross-docking is the process of transferring goods directly from inbound trucks to outbound trucks. When the trucks from the suppliers arrive at the distribution centers, most of the trucks are not offloaded to keep the goods in the distribution centers or warehouses; they are transferred directly to another truck designated to deliver goods to specific retail stores for sale. Cross-docking helps in saving the storage costs. Initially, the company was incurring considerable costs of storing the goods from the suppliers in its warehouses and the distributions centers to await the distribution trucks to the retail stores in various regions.

Additive manufacturing The potential of additive manufacturing is particularly high in the production of spare parts, since its introduction can reduce warehousing costs of slowly rotating spare parts. Digitizing technology bears the potential to completely disrupt and restructure supply chains and enhance existing production routes. Blockchain In comparison, research on the influence of blockchain technology on the supply chain is still in its early stages. The conceptual literature has argued for a considerably long time that the highest performance efficacy is expected in the potential for automatic contract creation.

Empirical evidence contradicts this hypothesis: the highest potential is expected in the arenas of verified customer reviews and certifications of product quality and standards. In addition, traditional supply chain has many drawbacks such as lack of transparency and trust, and some of them can be solved by blockchain technology. The technological features of blockchains support transparency and traceability of information, as well as high levels of reliability and immutability of records.

Companies such as OwlTing Group have implemented blockchain-based traceability systems for agricultural and food supply chains in Taiwan. That helps traditional supply chain management to be more efficient and reliable. Globalization Increased cross-border sourcing Collaboration for parts of value chain with low-cost providers Shared service centers for logistical and administrative functions Increasingly global operations, which require increasingly global coordination and planning to achieve global optimums Complex problems involve also midsized companies to an increasing degree These trends have many benefits for manufacturers because they make possible larger lot sizes, lower taxes, and better environments (e.g., culture, infrastructure, special tax zones, or sophisticated OEM) for their products. There are many additional challenges when the scope of supply chains is global. This is because with a supply chain of a larger scope, the lead time is much longer, and because there are more issues involved, such as multiple currencies, policies, and laws. The consequent problems include different currencies and valuations in different countries, different tax laws, different trading protocols, vulnerability to natural disasters and cyber threats, and lack of transparency of cost and profit.

Government by algorithm encompasses a range of approaches involving the application of computer algorithms to aspects of society and governance. This term, also referred to as algorithmic regulation, regulation by algorithms, algorithmic governance, algocratic governance, algorithmic legal order, or algocracy, describes the use of algorithms to influence or govern sectors such as law enforcement, transportation, and land registration. The term "government by algorithm" was first introduced in academic literature in 2013 as an alternative for "algorithmic governance". A related term, algorithmic regulation, involves the use of computational algorithms to set standards, monitor, and modify behavior within specific contexts, such as the automation of the judiciary. Government by algorithm raises challenges that are not fully addressed in the existing e-government literature or public administration practice. Some sources equate cyberocracy, which is a hypothetical form of government that rules by the effective use of information, with algorithmic governance, although algorithms are not the only means of processing information. Nello Cristianini and Teresa Scantamburlo argued that the combination of a human society and certain regulation algorithms (such as reputation-based scoring) forms a social machine.

In 1962, the director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow (later Kharkevich Institute), Alexander Kharkevich, published an article in the journal "Communist" about a computer network for processing information and control of the economy. He proposed a computer network resembling aspects of the modern Internet for the purposes of algorithmic governance (Project OGAS). This proposal raised concerns among CIA analysts. In particular, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. warned that "by 1970 the USSR may have a radically new production technology, involving total enterprises or complexes of industries, managed by closed-loop, feedback control employing self-teaching computers". Between 1971 and 1973, the Chilean government carried out Project Cybersyn during the presidency of Salvador Allende. This project was aimed at constructing a distributed decision support system to improve the management of the national economy. Elements of the project were used in 1972 to successfully overcome the traffic collapse caused by a CIA-sponsored strike of forty thousand truck drivers. Besides that initial project, its architect, Stafford Beer was involved in similar cybernetic projects across Latin America during the 1980s and 1990s, as the region gradually returned to democracy, particularly in Uruguay and Colombia, in which his Viable System Model's (VSM) was applied. Also in the 1960s and 1970s, Herbert A. Simon championed expert systems as tools for rationalization and evaluation of administrative behavior. The automation of rule-based processes was an ambition of tax agencies over many decades resulting in varying success. Early work from this period includes Thorne McCarty's influential TAXMAN project in the US and Ronald Stamper's LEGOL project in the UK. In 1993, the computer scientist Paul Cockshott from the University of Glasgow and the economist Allin Cottrell from the Wake Forest University published the book Towards a New Socialism, where they claim to demonstrate the possibility of a democratically planned economy built on modern computer technology. The Honourable Justice Michael Kirby published a paper in 1998, where he expressed optimism that the then-available computer technologies such as legal expert system could evolve to computer systems, which will strongly affect the practice of courts. In 2006, attorney Lawrence Lessig, known for the slogan "Code is law", wrote: 5. Performance Evaluation & Extended Technical Observations [T]he invisible hand of cyberspace is building an architecture that is quite the opposite of its architecture at its birth. This invisible hand, pushed by government and by commerce, is constructing an architecture that will perfect control and make highly efficient regulation possible Since the 2000s, algorithms have been designed and used to automatically analyze surveillance videos. In his 2006 book Virtual Migration, A. Aneesh developed the concept of algocracy — information technologies constrain human participation in public decision making. Aneesh differentiated algocratic systems from bureaucratic systems (legal-rational regulation) as well as market-based systems (price-based regulation). In 2013, the concept of algorithmic regulation was popularized by Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media: Sometimes the "rules" aren't really even rules. Gordon Bruce, the former CIO of the city of Honolulu, explained to me that when he entered government from the private sector and tried to make changes, he was told, "That's against the law." His reply was "OK. Show me the law." "Well, it isn't really a law. It's a regulation." "OK. Show me the regulation." "Well, it isn't really a regulation. It's a policy that was put in place by Mr. Somebody twenty years ago." "Great. We can change that!" [...] Laws should specify goals, rights, outcomes, authorities, and limits. If specified broadly, those laws can stand the test of time.

Regulations, which specify how to execute those laws in much more detail, should be regarded in much the same way that programmers regard their code and algorithms, that is, as a constantly updated toolset to achieve the outcomes specified in the laws. [...] It's time for government to enter the age of big data. Algorithmic regulation is an idea whose time has come. In 2017, Ukraine's Ministry of Justice ran experimental government auctions using blockchain technology to ensure transparency and hinder corruption in governmental transactions. "Government by Algorithm?" was the central theme introduced at Data for Policy 2017 conference held on 6–7 September 2017 in London.

A smart city is an urban area where collected surveillance data is used to improve various operations. Increases in computational power allow more automated decision-making and replacement of public agencies by algorithmic governance. In particular, the combined use of artificial intelligence and blockchains for IoT may lead to the creation of sustainable smart city ecosystems. Intelligent street lighting in Glasgow is an example of successful government application of AI algorithms. A study of smart city initiatives in the US shows that it requires public sector as a main organizer and coordinator, the private sector as a technology and infrastructure provider, and universities as expertise contributors. The cryptocurrency millionaire Jeffrey Berns proposed the operation of local governments in Nevada by tech firms in 2021. Berns bought 67,000 acres (271 km2) in Nevada's rural Storey County (population 4,104) for $170,000,000 (£121,000,000) in 2018 in order to develop a smart city with more than 36,000 residents that could generate an annual output of $4,600,000,000. Cryptocurrency would be allowed for payments. Blockchains, Inc. "Innovation Zone" was canceled in September 2021 after it failed to secure enough water for the planned 36,000 residents, through water imports from a site located 100 miles away in the neighboring Washoe County. A similar water pipeline proposed in 2007 was estimated to cost $100 million and would have taken about 10 years to develop. With additional water rights purchased from Tahoe Reno Industrial General Improvement District, "Innovation Zone" would have acquired enough water for about 15,400 homes – meaning that it would have barely covered its planned 15,000 dwelling units, leaving nothing for the rest of the projected city and its 22 million square-feet of industrial development. In Saudi Arabia, the planners of The Line assert that it will be monitored by AI to improve life by using data and predictive modeling.

Tim O'Reilly suggested that data sources and reputation systems combined in algorithmic regulation can outperform traditional regulations. For instance, once taxi-drivers are rated by passengers, the quality of their services will improve automatically and "drivers who provide poor service are eliminated". O'Reilly's suggestion is based on the control-theoretic concept of feed-back loop—improvements and disimprovements of reputation enforce desired behavior. The usage of feedback-loops for the management of social systems has already been suggested in management cybernetics by Stafford Beer before. These connections are explored by Nello Cristianini and Teresa Scantamburlo, where the reputation-credit scoring system is modeled as an incentive given to the citizens and computed by a social machine, so that rational agents would be motivated to increase their score by adapting their behaviour. Several ethical aspects of that technology are still being discussed. China's Social Credit System was said to be a mass surveillance effort with a centralized numerical score for each citizen given for their actions, though newer reports say that this is a widespread misconception.

According to a study of Stanford University, 45% of the studied US federal agencies have experimented with AI and related machine learning (ML) tools up to 2020. US federal agencies counted the number of artificial intelligence applications, which are listed below. 53% of these applications were produced by in-house experts. Commercial providers of residual applications include Palantir Technologies.

In 2012, NOPD started a collaboration with Palantir Technologies in the field of predictive policing. Besides Palantir's Gotham software, other similar (numerical analysis software) used by police agencies (such as the NCRIC) include SAS. In the fight against money laundering, FinCEN employs the FinCEN Artificial Intelligence System (FAIS) since 1995. National health administration entities and organisations such as AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association) hold medical records. Medical records serve as the central repository for planning patient care and documenting communication among patient and health care provider and professionals contributing to the patient's care. In the EU, work is ongoing on a European Health Data Space which supports the use of health data. US Department of Homeland Security has employed the software ATLAS, which run on Amazon Cloud. It scanned more than 16.5 million records of naturalized Americans and flagged approximately 124,000 of them for manual analysis and review by USCIS officers regarding denaturalization. They were flagged due to potential fraud, public safety and national security issues. Some of the scanned data came from Terrorist Screening Database and National Crime Information Center. The NarxCare is a US software, which combines data from the prescription registries of various U.S. states and uses machine learning to generate various three-digit "risk scores" for prescriptions of medications and an overall "Overdose Risk Score", collectively referred to as Narx Scores, in a process that potentially includes EMS and criminal justice data as well as court records. In Estonia, artificial intelligence is used in its e-government to make it more automated and seamless. A virtual assistant will guide citizens through any interactions they have with the government. Automated and proactive services "push" services to citizens at key events of their lives (including births, bereavements, unemployment). One example is the automated registering of babies when they are born. Estonia's X-Road system will also be rebuilt to include even more privacy control and accountability into the way the government uses citizen's data. In Costa Rica, the possible digitalization of public procurement activities (i.e. tenders for public works) has been investigated. The paper discussing this possibility mentions that the use of ICT in procurement has several benefits such as increasing transparency, facilitating digital access to public tenders, reducing direct interaction between procurement officials and companies at moments of high integrity risk, increasing outreach and competition, and easier detection of irregularities.

Besides using e-tenders for regular public works (construction of buildings, roads), e-tenders can also be used for reforestation projects and other carbon sink restoration projects. Carbon sink restoration projects may be part of the nationally determined contributions plans in order to reach the national Paris agreement goals. Government procurement audit software can also be used. Audits are performed in some countries after subsidies have been received. Some government agencies provide track and trace systems for services they offer. An example is track and trace for applications done by citizens (i.e.

driving license procurement). Some government services use issue tracking systems to keep track of ongoing issues. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, in-person final exams were impossible for thousands of students. The public high school Westminster High employed algorithms to assign grades. UK's Department for Education also employed a statistical calculus to assign final grades in A-levels, due to the pandemic. Besides use in grading, software systems like AI were used in preparation for college entrance exams. AI teaching assistants are being developed and used for education (e.g. Georgia Tech's Jill Watson) and there is also an ongoing debate on the possibility of teachers being entirely replaced by AI systems (e.g. in homeschooling).

In 2018, an activist named Michihito Matsuda ran for mayor in the Tama city area of Tokyo as a human proxy for an artificial intelligence program. While election posters and campaign material used the term robot, and displayed stock images of a feminine android, the "AI mayor" was in fact a machine learning algorithm trained using Tama city datasets. The project was backed by high-profile executives Tetsuzo Matsumoto of Softbank and Norio Murakami of Google. Michihito Matsuda came third in the election, being defeated by Hiroyuki Abe. Organisers claimed that the 'AI mayor' was programmed to analyze citizen petitions put forward to the city council in a more 'fair and balanced' way than human politicians. In 2018, Cesar Hidalgo presented the idea of augumented democracy. In an augumented democracy, legislation is done by digital twins of every single person. In 2019, AI-powered messenger chatbot SAM participated in the discussions on social media connected to an electoral race in New Zealand. The creator of SAM, Nick Gerritsen, believed SAM would be advanced enough to run as a candidate by late 2020, when New Zealand had its next general election. In 2022, the chatbot "Leader Lars" or "Leder Lars" was nominated for The Synthetic Party to run in the 2022 Danish parliamentary election, and was built by the artist collective Computer Lars. Leader Lars differed from earlier virtual politicians by leading a political party and by not pretending to be an objective candidate. This chatbot engaged in critical discussions on politics with users from around the world. In November 2023, in the Japanese town of Manazuru, a mayoral candidate called "AI Mayer" hoped to be the first AI-powered officeholder in Japan. This candidacy was said to be supported by a group led by Michihito Matsuda. In the 2024 United Kingdom general election, a businessman named Steve Endacott ran for the constituency of Brighton Pavilion as an AI avatar named "AI Steve", saying that constituents could interact with AI Steve to shape policy. Endacott stated that he would only attend Parliament to vote based on policies which had garnered at least 50% support. AI Steve placed last with 179 votes. On September 11, 2025, Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama appointed AI chatbot Diella to the seat of Minister for Public Procurements. The move, he claimed, would make Albania "a country where 100% of public tenders are free of corruption".

He stated that the process would be "step-by-step", and that "Albania's public tenders will be "100 percent incorruptible and where every public fund that goes through the tender procedure is 100 percent legible." Leaving it up to interpretation whether he was talking about her appointment, or the process of automating public procurements using Diella. Public opinion is torn on the topic of whether Albania should use Diella for this purpose. Many Eastern-Europeans are claiming the move is a step in the right direction, and that Albania is advancing. Many Westerners, however, have approached the move with a more critical lens, saying it is a dangerous and reckless move to place billions in public funding in the hands of an AI.

Harvested Online Documentation & Reference Sources • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockchain • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply%20chain%20management • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government%20by%20algorithm