Blockchain Technology for Enhancing Traceability and Efficiency in Automobile Supply Chain—A Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This work has a focus on bringing blockchain to supply chain operations, which aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness. While the topics could be diverting and useful, the current contributions details as well as the technical details are not convincing. I would suggest following comments for potential improvements:

1. The title of "A New Proposed Blockchain-Based Architecture to Reduce Product Traceability Issues and Improve Efficiency of Supply Chains Operations" needs to be changed, which is now verbose and not meaningful. Title has to be concise to represent the overall idea.
2. The overall writing needs substantial improvement in terms of typos, grammars and verbal language usage. Suche as multiple places in abstract, i.e., 'the simulation results ... reveals...', 'that there is improved communication between', 'get more visibility' and so on.
3. Which of 'decentralised' or 'de-centralised' is correct? Is 'ecosystem' or 'eco-system'. Please double check all the phrases.
4. Till page 3, it is still not clear what are the challenges to be solved with the so called 'blockchain-based automative supply chain operations'. Please elaborate that.
5. It is not convincing by pointing out 'a limited number of scholarly research' to add value for technical contributions. Please reconsider it.
6. Currently, these two research questions don't indicate any novel contributions of this work. Why does the automotive supply chain traceability system need blockchain? What is the difference between the blockchain-based system and other systems? Any specific chanllenges?
7. The review outcome in section 2 is weak, most of the works are outdated. Latest one is 2018. Please focus on more recent works, including 2021.
8. Section 3 shows the methodology which is literature review. However, it has been discussed in section 2. Are there any other technical details regarding the steps after literature review?
9. Figure 4 appears to be naive according to the description in section 4. What is the newly improved points beside purely incorporating blockchain? Please elaborate more details.
10. The showcase of simulation is not clear. Please present more details regarding the improvement in operations, from both effectiveness and efficiency.
11. Figures 7a to 7f and 9a to 9f are quite hard to interpret. Please consider to present the diagram in a more readable format and give more explanation regarding the improvement.
12. section 8.1 should be updated without distinct section number.

Author Response

Revision Response

We thank the editorial board members and the reviewers for taking the time to review our paper and for their valuable comments. Please find below our responses to the following recommendations:

The corrections incorporated are being highlighted in the paper with red color. We thoroughly revised the paper strictly following your suggestions and valuable feedback. A pointwise response to each of the suggestions made by the reviewer is presented below.

 

Reviewer 1

 

1. The title of "A New Proposed Blockchain-Based Architecture to Reduce Product Traceability Issues and Improve Efficiency of Supply Chains Operations" needs to be changed, which is now verbose and not meaningful. The title has to be concise to represent the overall idea.

 

As per the reviewer's comment, the suggested change is incorporated. The new title is ‘Blockchain technology for enhancing traceability and efficiency in Automobile Supply Chain – A Case Study’. We thank the reviewer for helping us to improve the title of the article.

 

2. The overall writing needs substantial improvement in terms of typos, grammar, and verbal language usage. Such as multiple places in abstract, i.e., 'the simulation results ... reveals...', 'that there is improved communication between', 'get more visibility, and so on.

The paper has been re-read to improve the language as per the reviewer's comment.

 

3. Which of 'decentralized' or 'de-centralized is correct? Is 'ecosystem' or 'eco-system'. Please double-check all the phrases.

The mentioned phrases are checked and used right phrases as per the reviewer's comment.

 

4. Till page 3, it is still not clear what are the challenges to be solved with the so called 'blockchain-based automotive supply chain operations'. Please elaborate that.

Thanks to the reviewer for pointing this out. The current challenges faced in the automotive supply chain are included in the introduction section (Section 1).

 

5. It is not convincing by pointing out 'a limited number of scholarly research' to add value for technical contributions. Please reconsider it.

 

The mentioned comment on ‘limited number of scholarly research’ is reviewed and updated the statement appropriately as per the reviewer's comment.

 

6. Currently, these two research questions don't indicate any novel contributions of this work. Why does the automotive supply chain traceability system need blockchain? What is the difference between the blockchain-based system and other systems? Any specific challenges?

As per the reviewer's comment, the research questions are revisited and updated to make them clear. In addition, the need for blockchain and the difference between the blockchain and other systems are updated in Section 2.2. Further, the current challenges of case organization are mentioned in section 4.2.

 

7. The review outcome in section 2 is weak, most of the works are outdated. Latest one is 2018. Please focus on more recent works, including 2021.

Thanks for the reviewer comment. The literature is updated with more recent works including 2021.

 

8. Section 3 shows the methodology which is literature review. However, it has been discussed in section 2. Are there any other technical details regarding the steps after literature review?

As per the reviewer's comment, the literature review related statements in section 3 are brought into the literature section.

 

9. Figure 4 appears to be naive according to the description in section 4. What are the newly improved points beside purely incorporating blockchain? Please elaborate more details.

As per the reviewer's comment, the details are described in section 4.3. The technical details of the blockchain are mentioned in section 4.3.1.

 

10. The showcase of the simulation is not clear. Please present more details regarding the improvement in operations, from both effectiveness and efficiency.

As per the reviewer's comment, added a few descriptions on the simulation figures in section 4.4.1. Essentially it shows the signs of improved traceability and reduction in waiting time.

 

11. Figures 7a to 7f and 9a to 9f are quite hard to interpret. Please consider to present the diagram in a more readable format and give more explanation regarding the improvement.

As per reviewer comment, before and after blockchain integration graphs are placed side by side for easy comparison and better clarity on the inference. Updated the description to give more details in section 5 (Discussion).

 

12. Section 8.1 should be updated without distinct section number.

As per the reviewer's comment, the mentioned section is updated without a distinct section number. We thank the reviewer for spending time reviewing the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1. This is an interesting piece of research and must be improved to focus its novelty
2. It looks as literature review article with lack of novelty
3. It looks mostly theoretical description of blcokchain on product traceability without real life case study
4. It simulates the application of blockchain which does not have much authenticity itself
5. There are many strong statement without references, for instance, "Various issues and vulnerabilities related to automotive supply were reviewed and different approaches for blockchain integration into supply chain were also analyzed"; no references teh contents in Table 1 and so on
6. Methodology is poorly stated. First paragph of literature review should be under methodology section
7. Many figures are stated without explanation

Author Response

Revision Response

We thank the editorial board members and the reviewers for taking the time to review our paper and for their valuable comments. Please find below our responses to the following recommendations:

The corrections incorporated are being highlighted in the paper with red color. We thoroughly revised the paper strictly following your suggestions and valuable feedback. A pointwise response to each of the suggestions made by the reviewer is presented below.

 

Reviewer 2

 

1. This is an interesting piece of research and must be improved to focus its novelty

As per the reviewer's comment, the novelty of the research is updated. We thank the reviewer for helping us to improve the quality of the article.

2. It looks as literature review article with lack of novelty

As per the reviewer's comment, the literature review (Section 2) is updated to improve the novelty of the research is updated. A case study is conducted in an automotive organization located in South India.

3. It looks mostly theoretical description of blockchain on product traceability without real life case study.

As per the reviewer's comment, section 4.1 and section 4.2 are updated to reflect the case study details and the problem statement of the case organization.

4. It stimulates the application of blockchain which does not have much authenticity itself.

Section 4.4.1 is updated to give more details on the simulation. The simulation is performed using Anylogic software 8.4.

5. There are many strong statements without references, for instance, "Various issues and vulnerabilities related to automotive supply were reviewed and different approaches for blockchain integration into supply chain were also analyzed"; no references the contents in Table 1 and so on

As per the reviewer's comment, section 2.2 is updated. Also, references are updated.  

6. Methodology is poorly stated. First paraph of literature review should be under methodology section

As per the reviewer's comment, the methodology section is updated. We thank the reviewer for this.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The subject of the article is interesting, and it is linked to the objectives of the journal, however, there are some issues that have to be reconsidered.

For better visibility on databases, the authors are asked not to repeat among keywords the words/concepts included in the title of the article.

The article is interestinf, but I feel that the informaiton are not enough used in the fainal part, as reccommendations for scholars, government, industry and so on. 

Author Response

Revision Response

We thank the editorial board members and the reviewers for taking the time to review our paper and for their valuable comments. Please find below our responses to the following recommendations:

The corrections incorporated are being highlighted in the paper with red color. We thoroughly revised the paper strictly following your suggestions and valuable feedback. A pointwise response to each of the suggestions made by the reviewer is presented below.

 

Reviewer 3

1. For better visibility on databases, the authors are asked not to repeat among keywords the words/concepts included in the title of the article.

As per the reviewer's comment, the keywords are updated. We thank the reviewer for helping us to improve the visibility of the article.

 

2. The article is interesting, but I feel that the information are not enough used in the final part, as recommendations for scholars, government, industry and so on. 

As per the reviewer's comment, updated the final part of the article. We thank the reviewer for spending time reviewing the article.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

thanks for the revision.

Reviewer 2 Report

It is revised nicely!