Internet of Things and Blockchain Technology in Apparel Manufacturing Supply Chain Data Management

The rapid changes in textile and clothing industry's operational environment in which apparel businesses are collaborating with their suppliers and customers have recognized interoperability of information systems as an important factor. The need to address this challenge becomes vital in the context of new paradigms such as the Internet of Things (IoT), and its ability to capture real-time information from different parts of textile and cloth manufacturing value chain by using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags and sensors-based data communication networks. In this process, enterprise information system architecture plays an important role in storing, processing, and distributing data. Despite contributing to the rapid development of IoT applications, the current IoT-centric architecture has led to a myriad of isolated data silos. This paper presents a blockchain-based architecture for the IoT applications, which brings distributed data management to support transactions services within a multi-party apparel business supply chain network. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.