A blockchain-driven cyber-credit evaluation approach for establishing reliable cooperation among unauthentic MSMEs in social manufacturing
Industrial Management & Data Systems
ISSN: 0263-5577
Article publication date: 11 December 2020
Issue publication date: 29 March 2021
Abstract
Purpose
Social manufacturing has emerged. It aims to integrate the manufacturing resources of micro- and small-scale manufacturing enterprises (MSMEs) and help MSMEs cope with the dynamic, service-oriented and personalized market demands. In social manufacturing, MSMEs cooperate with each other through manufacturing resource sharing. However, because MSMEs are distributed and decentralized, the efficiency of establishing reliable cooperation between MSMEs is relatively low. Therefore, this paper presents a blockchain-driven cyber-credit evaluation system (BCCES) to implement distributed cyber-credit evaluation. BCCES can provide reliable cyber-credit for distributed MSMEs without the trusted third party. This can improve the efficiency of establishing reliable cooperation among unauthentic MSMEs.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper proposes a BCCES to evaluate MSMEs' cyber-credit in decentralized environment. In BCCES, a cyber-credit evaluation model is proposed by improving set pair analysis (SPA) method, and cyber-credit smart contract and distributed consensus mechanism are designed according to the runtime logic of distributed cyber-credit evaluation.
Findings
The results confirmed that BCCES is feasible and effective to implement cyber-credit evaluation without the trusted third party. With the advantages of blockchain, BCCES can automatically realize cyber-credit evaluation through smart contract and distributed consensus. At the same time, BCCES can evaluate the real-time cyber-credit of MSMEs based on their latest service evaluation. In addition, we can design corresponding smart contracts according to actual requirements, which makes blockchain applicable to different distributed scenarios.
Originality/value
The paper combines blockchain and SPA to implement cyber-credit evaluation in social manufacturing and provides a new feasible idea for cyber-credit evaluation without the trusted third party. This can also provide MSMEs a reference of applying blockchain to other distributed scenarios through combining smart contract and different algorithms.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: The research work presented in this study is under the support of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51975464).
Citation
Liu, J. and Jiang, P. (2021), "A blockchain-driven cyber-credit evaluation approach for establishing reliable cooperation among unauthentic MSMEs in social manufacturing", Industrial Management & Data Systems, Vol. 121 No. 4, pp. 724-749. https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-05-2020-0295
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited