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Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

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DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3031536

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Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2017.DOI

Blockchain-Based Traceability and

Management for Additive Manufacturing
WALA’ ALKHADER1 , NOUF ALKAABI2 , KHALED SALAH2 , RAJA JAYARAMAN1 , JUNAID
ARSHAD 3 and MOHAMMED OMAR1
1
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
2
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
3
School of Computing and Digital Technology, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK
Corresponding author: Raja Jayaraman (e-mail: [email protected])

ABSTRACT Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a major advancement in the digitization of manufacturing

and production operations. Additive manufacturing uses three dimensional digital design, software and hard-
ware equipment to precisely deposit layered materials for on-demand product manufacturing. The distinct
advantages in enabling additive manufacturing includes cost efficiency, reduced time-to-market, flexibility
and precise customization. However, several challenges such as trusted traceability, certification for quality
compliance, and protecting intellectual property need to be addressed. Blockchain-based distributed ledgers
provide tremendous advantages for product traceability and ensure trust among participating stakeholders.
In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based solution for product traceability produced using additive
manufacturing, guaranteeing secure and trusted traceability, accessibility, and immutability of transactions,
and data provenance among supply chain stakeholders. Our proposed solution utilizes Ethereum smart
contracts to govern and trace transactions initiated by participants involved in the manufacturing process.
Decentralized storage of Inter-Planetary File Systems is used to store and share design files, IoT device
records, and additional product specifications. We provide the system architecture, implementation, and
detailed algorithms that demonstrate the working principles of our proposed solution for secure AM.
Furthermore, we present detailed security and cost analysis of the solution highlighting its efficiency with
respect to key security and performance requirements.

INDEX TERMS Additive Manufacturing, Blockchain, Supply Chain, 3D Printing, Cybersecurity, Trust,
Traceability

I. INTRODUCTION the advancements in AM technology.

N the current era of Industry 4.0, rapid advances in digiti-
I zation and geographically diverse supply chains introduce
an important need to track, and ensure the authenticity and
3D printing is synonymous to AM and has come a long
way since its adoption, specifically in the area of metal 3D
printing. 3D printing enables large variety of products at
origin of the products. The conventional approach employed greater accuracy whilst minimizing material waste, which in
in horizontal supply chains does not satisfy the progres- traditional manufacturing can be as high as 90% for metal
sions in communication systems and resulting challenges, parts manufacturing. In addition, 3D printing consumes less
pushing manufacturers to seek robust, trusted, flexible, and energy and can produce parts stronger and lighter, leading to
agile solutions. Additive manufacturing (AM) has provided reduction in overall costs [1]. However, successful adoption
transformational opportunities by reducing the time to de- of AM for products introduces several challenges related
liver, enabling production facility to be closer to demand, to quality and verifiable source of production, adherence
leading to sustainable operations. AM plays an integral role to standards, and protection of copyright and intellectual
in reforming the supply chain as a value-added network that property to name a few. Therefore, AM requires trusted
incorporates all stakeholders with intertwined flows of data, tracking solutions and suitable technology support to be
products, and financial transactions amongst them. In partic-
ular, spare parts supply chain with intermittent, non-stable 1 https://github.com/smartcontract9/3D-printing-using-blockchain-tech/
demand and customer dispersion can immensely benefit from blob/master/Remix\%20code

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 W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

widely adopted across diverse industries.

Testing &
Row Material Manufacturing Distribution Warehousing End User
Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin [2] in 2008 us- Certification

ing blockchain technology to create a public transaction

ledger. Blockchain is a peer-to-peer, distributed, timestamped
ledger of transactions managed by a cluster of computer
Horizontal Information Flow
nodes. Blockchain technology is distinguished by several (a)

fundamental characteristics, such as decentralization, persis-

tence, anonymity, and auditability. The inherent features of
blockchain technology offers significant advantages such as
trustworthy, immutable, auditable transactions, eliminating Customer/ End
User
Local Delivery
intermediaries which is crucial for digital AM. Blockchain
technology can provide transparent and secure data transac-
tions, improve traceability, increase efficiency, and reduced
 Multi-Directional
cost of various supply chain processes. Information Flow
Blockchain ledger consists of a growing chain of blocks
linked and secured using cryptographic fundamentals. The Certification
Digital Product
Manufacturer
blocks contain information that can represent transactions,
contracts, or business rules that can be described in digital
form. Every block in the chain contains the hash of the
Sensor
preceding block preventing any data modification leading to 3D Printer
immutability of transactions. Blockchain is considered as a (b)

decentralized distributed ledger as it is a P2P network where FIGURE 1: Value-added Networks and Conventional sup-
the nodes of this network work on validating new blocks, ply chains
those nodes maintain their copy of the chain so that the for successful adoption of AM for products brings several
information stored in the blockchain is identical across the challenges. For instance, in a complex supply chain spanning
network. Nodes work collectively on validating and relaying across multiple organizational and geographical domains, a
transactions [3]. Blockchain technology works successfully trustworthy view of the product status is fundamental to
based on three core principles: (i) cryptographic hash, (ii) achieving just-in-time manufacturing. Furthermore, as parts
digital signature (based on public and private keys), and are manufactured independently, by different suppliers, ad-
(iii) distributed consensus mechanism (mining) [5]. Public herence to the overall product specification and quality as-
blockchains such as Ethereum can store and execute smart surance becomes non-trivial. In view of these, AM requires
contract. Smart contracts are software code that enable busi- digital innovations to improve visibility of parts across differ-
ness logic and rules to be programmed using a high level ent tiers of the supply chain to achieve widespread adoption
language. For example, a manufacturer can deploy smart across diverse industries. Therein, this paper explores use of
contract to send a secure digital spare part design or drawing blockchains to address such challenges by facilitating trusted
and production orders to a remote manufacturing facility. track & trace of parts across different segments of the supply
Additionally, two or more entities in the supply chain can chain.
securely record an agreement over a public network without
requiring a third-party authorization [4], [5]. B. BENEFITS OF BLOCKCHAIN FOR AM SUPPLY
In this paper we focus on two significant challenges CHAINS
in additive manufacturing using blockchain technology i.e. The primary advantages of adopting the proposed
copyright protection of the digital product design owned by blockchain-based AM decentralized supply networks in-
manufacturing companies, and the attestation and certifica- clude:
tion of the printed spare parts to external entities such as
contract manufacturers. Leveraging blockchain technology, Shorter Lead Time. Shorter lead time compared to the
we highlight potential gains for additive manufacturing with traditional supply chain can be achieved due to decentralized
respect to security and performance of decentralized 3D nature of the 3D printing supply network, where smaller 3D
printing supply networks. printing stations can be spatially distributed to cover larger
areas demand at a considerably faster production rate.
A. PROBLEM DEFINITION Savings in Transportation Costs. Due to the decentralized
Additive manufacturing has introduced innovative opportuni- nature of the AM network, transportation and freight costs in
ties by reducing time to deliver products, enabling production the traditional supply chain can be significantly minimized.
facilities to be closer to demand thereby leading to sustain- Reduced Inventory Cost. The implementation of a dis-
able operations. However, there remain challenges such as tributed decentralized network will shift demand from
verifiable traceability of parts, trustworthy mechanisms for pushed to market into pulled by customer demand. So man-
recording provenance, and protection of copyright and IP ufacturers will be following make to order instead of make
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W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

to stock, and all inventory related costs will be significantly and additive manufacturing and finally we review literature
reduced. related to Ethereum blockchain.
Product Customization. Customization of products will be
flexible and doable than traditional production and supply A. ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING IN PRODUCT
chain methods. Resulting in greater customer satisfaction and MANAGEMENT
enhanced services. Durao et al. [7] compared the centralized factory scenario
Increased Transparency and Communication. Due to the versus decentralized and distributed 3D printing-based pro-
ease and openness in communication between all stakehold- duction sites. The main focus was on work organization,
ers in the supply chain network, all parts of the network network performance, and intellectual property. The results
can communicate and observe transactions. While in the concluded that distributed manufacturing provides a highly
traditional supply chain, only horizontal information flow is flexible and adaptive production closer to the end-user. The
available, and communication is limited between different authors also highlighted several challenges distributed sites
parties. might face related to information exchange, communication,
Reduced Carbon Footprint and Emissions. AM helps in security, and intellectual property protection.
reducing carbon footprint and emissions, causing damage to Li et al. [8] presented a comparative analysis between con-
the environment. The manufacturing and supply network im- ventional supply chain, centralized AM-based supply chain,
plementing AM and blockchain technology is substantially and distributed AM-based supply chain. Their results indi-
more environmentally friendly. cate that the utilization of AM is far better than the conven-
tional supply chain with respect to sustainable performance
C. SCOPE AND CONTRIBUTIONS and environmental impact but not superior economically in
We propose a blockchain-based solution for traceability and all spare parts categories. The gap in economic efficiency is
copyrights protection of the 3D printed digital spare parts. envisaged to be fulfilled with the advancements in technol-
The main contributions are as follows: ogy, AM-based spare parts and its management. Khajavi et al.
[9] developed a similar comparison and concluded that using
• We discuss the advantages and use of blockchain in the
AM technology, centralized production is the preferable sup-
additive manufacturing supply chain of spare parts.
ply chain configuration for their case. However, distributed
• We highlight the opportunities that blockchain brings
spare parts production becomes practical as AM machines
to additive manufacturing in spare parts supply chain,
become less costly, more autonomous, and allow shorter
focusing on privacy and security services, traceability,
production periods.
copyrights, intellectual property rights, attestation, and
Sirichakwal and Conner [10] examined the role of inven-
certification.
tory management in AM of spare parts. In particular their
• We develop an Ethereum blockchain-based smart con-
study investigates the impact of reduced costs of holding
tract that establishes the authenticity of the 3D digital
spare parts and lead times. Their results demonstrated that;
and printed product by providing credible and secure
firstly, the stock-out probability is affected by the holding
traceability and enables attestation and certification of
costs at low demand rates. Secondly, reduced lead time could
3D printed products.
negatively impact the stock-out probability. Liu et al. [11]
• We illustrate the system architecture, sequence diagrams
evaluated the impact of AM in the aircraft spare parts supply
between stakeholders, and algorithms used in Ethereum
chain under three different scenarios; the conventional supply
smart contracts to control and govern various interac-
chain, centralized AM supply chain, and distributed AM
tions among stakeholders.
supply chain. Their study concludes that the use of AM
• We demonstrate a complete implementation of the smart
would efficiently contribute to reducing the safety inventory
contract code with testing, and present cost and security
levels in the supply chain. Gupta et al. [20] studied the gen-
analysis.
eral characteristics of AM supply chain focusing on various
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. cybersecurity risks concluding the need for robust technology
Section II presents the related work. Section III presents to overcome supply chain security and risks.
the proposed blockchain system architecture. Section IV
describes the implementation. Section V demonstrates the B. BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN SPARE PARTS
functionality testing details. Section VI discusses the cost and MANAGEMENT AND AM
security analysis of the implemented solution and Section VII Fernández-Caramés and Fraga-Lamas [19] presented a re-
presents the conclusions and future work. view on blockchain based applications for Industry 4.0 high-
lighting critical security challenges associated with cyber-
II. RELATED WORK physical systems. Mandolla et al. [4], discussed building a
In this section, we review the relevant literature under three digital twin for AM using blockchain. The authors high-
thematic areas. We first discuss work related to additive lighted the unique features of blockchain that facilitate its use
manufacturing in spare parts management, followed by appli- with the AM technology namely: transparency, traceability,
cation of blockchain technology in spare parts management and security of the blockchain that allows tracking the prod-
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 W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

ucts through its entire history; short processing times that diverse applications including manufacturing, supply chain,
make transactions almost real-time, speeds up the process finance and insurance, healthcare and others. The versatility
and allows much shorter and efficient time-to-market of the of smart contracts combined with cryptographic security
products; distributed nature of the blockchain, which helps features makes smart contracts ideal tools for transaction
in efficiently managing activities in the distributed AM pro- processing and real time data availability.
duction sites and supply chain. The authors conclude in that Several programming languages have been developed for
the implementation of blockchain in conjunction with system writing smart contracts, and solidity is one of the most
infrastructural elements has the potential to revolutionize and popular one for Ethereum. The author of the handbook
radically change the manufacturing industry. [15] defines solidity as a JavaScript-like language developed
Angrish et al. [12] proposed a prototype “FabRec” a sys- specifically for coding Ethereum smart contracts. The solid-
tem of a decentralized, distributed network of manufacturing ity compiler turns the code into Ethereum virtual machine
stations that is fully transparent, automated, paperless, se- (EVM) bytecode. Smart contracts written in solidity are exe-
cured and verified. The authors use Ethereum smart contracts cuted on a EVM. Smart contracts have their unique Ethereum
to enable decentralization and availability of the data on address and can execute function calls, handle modifiers,
a peer-to-peer network. The authors provided a proof of carry arbitrary states, perform arbitrary computations, and
concept system linking computing nodes, physical devices, even call other smart contracts.
primary CNC machines, demonstrating the feasibility of their The authors in [16] discussed the issue of stale blocks
proposed decentralized interoperable network. Furthermore, in the Ethereum network, which can occur when a group
several articles have discussed the use of blockchain technol- of mining nodes from the mining pool have more compu-
ogy for copyright and intellectual property protection [13], tation power than the others resulting in contributing more to
[14], in which authors emphasized that regulatory require- the network and creating a centralization issue. A modified
ments are a major source of impediment. However, AM is Greedy Heaviest Observed Subtree (GHOST) protocol is
on track to provide huge numbers of parts to the market used address the issue of centralization, ensures consensus
revolutionizing the way spare parts are produced, stored among participating nodes in the Ethereum network. Addi-
and handled in supply chains. Kurpjuweit et al. [21] used tionally, it solves the issue of stale blocks by including the
Delphi method to study the intergration of blockchain with stale blocks into calculations of the longest chain. To solve
AM. Their analysis provides evidence for opportunities in the centralization problem, GHOST gives 87.5 % of the block
intellectual property (IP) digital rights management, mon- reward to the stale block, while the remaining 12.5% goes to
itoring throughout the life cycle of the printing, process the nephew of the stale block. By doing so, the miners will
improvements, and data security. Vatankhah Barenji et al. be rewarded even if their block did not become part of the
[22] presented a blockchain based platform for small and blockchain.
medium enterprises improving scalability, security and big- Ethereum uses monetary units called Ether (Gwei) that
data related manufacturing problems. They validated the can be stored into Ethereum wallets, spent, or received. Each
platform for AM application over geographically distributed Ethereum account contains four fields: nonce, ether balance,
supply chain stakeholders. contract code hash, and storage root. Nonce represents the
Therefore, although the efforts discussed above have ex- number of transactions or contracts created by an account,
plored the use of blockchains to facilitate the emerging and it is used to ensure that each transaction can be processed
domain of additive manufacturing, these are limited with only once. Ether balance is the number of Gwei in the
respect to their effectiveness to address challenges focused account. Contract code hash is the keccak-256 hash of the
in this paper i.e. traceability and copyright protection of EVM code of the account. Storage root is the 256-bit hash of
spare parts. Therein, the effort proposed in this paper takes the root node of a Merkle tree representing the content of the
a holistic approach, adopting an end-to-end solution which account.
provides visibility for spare parts throughout their lifecycle Peyrott [15] indicated that the state must always be con-
whilst protecting against copyright infringement. Further- sistent across all Ethereum nodes. Although the storage is
more, leveraging smart contract technology, the proposed ap- unlimited, fewer power nodes will not be able to handle
proach achieves end-to-end automation, minimizing human it effectively. Ethereum solves this issue by using Merkle
intervention which contributes towards reduced lead times Patricia Trees, a special kind of data structure to store crypto-
for the spare parts. graphically authenticated data in the form of keys and values.
Given the same set of keys and values, Merkle Patricia Tree
C. ETHEREUM BLOCKCHAIN can be constructed only in a single way.
Ethereum blockchain enables decentralized applications for A transaction is a single instruction that is cryptographi-
participants to create rules, business agreements, transac- cally signed. Each transaction includes the recipient of the
tions, and functions using smart contracts. Smart contracts message, a signature identifying the sender, amount of Ether
are usually written using a high-level programming language to be sent, an optional data field, START GAS, and GAS
such as Solidity. The growing popularity of smart contracts PRICE values. START GAS field denotes the maximum
implemented using Ethereum blockchain have been used in number of computational steps the transaction is allowed to
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W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

consume. GAS is representing how costly is the transaction. on the blockchain ledger. Once the product is certified for
This limits the number of computations and solves the prob- quality compliance the product is dispatched to the customer
lem of denial of service attacks. through a local delivery, and all transactions, from workshop
till delivery to customer are stored in the blockchain ledger.
III. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE And finally, the smart contract ends the process once the cus-
This paper is focused at two critical research challenges tomer confirms the delivery, and all parties reach consensus.
for additive manufacturing i.e. traceability and copyright The purpose of the consensus algorithm is to guarantee that
protection of spare parts. Although there are existing efforts only a single unique history of transactions exists, and history
within application of blockchain for additive manufacturing, does not contain invalid or conflicting transactions.
these are limited with respect to their feasibility to address An arbitrator is defined with technical powers to modify
the two challenges. Firstly, the proposed system takes a or reverse transactions in the system. An arbitrator is as-
holistic approach, adopting an end-to-end solution which sumed to be a real-world entity which is able to perform
provides visibility for spare parts throughout their lifecycle dispute resolution. The immutable events recorded as part
whilst protecting against copyright infringement. Secondly, of the proposed system are indeed envisaged to facilitate
leveraging smart contract technology, the proposed approach the arbitrator, however, as the dispute resolution process is
achieves end-to-end automation, minimizing human inter- envisaged to be an offline process, this is rendered out of
vention which contributes towards reduced lead times for scope of the proposed system. During the development of the
the spare parts. Finally, through the use of Ethereum-based smart contract, an individual or an entity is pre-defined to
smart contracts, the proposed system establishes authenticity be responsible for examining the produced spare part and to
of the 3D digital and printed product by providing credible attest its validity, with suitable authority to ensure its imple-
and security traceability, enabling attestation and certification mentation in compliance with the law. Smart contracts can be
of 3D printed products. programmed to effectively perform the certification process.
Figure 2 presents the system architecture of our proposed Deposits from all related stakeholders can be implemented to
solution along with its major components and interaction enforce penalties on stakeholders violating or not fulfilling
among them. The stakeholders in the AM supply chain their established roles in the system. In case of failure to
includes customer, digital product manufacturer, printing successfully validating the process, completion ether will be
workshop and Certification Authority. A customer initiates transferred to the arbitrator to solve the dispute.
an order causing the smart contract to trigger further action Secure validation of transaction is important for any trans-
in the network. The smart contract is central to our proposed action processing system. The asymmetric public-key cryp-
solution and executes various functions, access transaction tography employed in Ethereum blockchain helps validate
blocks, and records the history log in the blockchain ledger. transactions securely. It is based on the existence of public
The Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) is a peer-to-peer and private keys for each stakeholder. They are used for data
network for storing and sharing data among the stakeholders. encryption and data signing. The public key can be used for
When a customer submits an order, the smart contract data encryption, where a message encrypted with the user’s
connects to the product manufacturer and the 3D print- public key can only be decrypted by the same user private
ing workshop. Once the product manufacturer and the 3D key. A user private key can be used for signing the data,
printing workshop confirm accepting the order, the product which can be verified using the user’s public key only. The
designer uploads the digital design on the IPFS and hash private key cannot be derived from the public key, while the
of the file is transmitted to the 3D printing workshop. All public key can be derived from the private key. In Ethereum
interactions and transactions between the stakeholders are blockchain both public and private keys are provided by the
stored in the blockchain ledger. Due to storage limitations system for each user to ensure that each user has a unique
and size restrictions larger files are stored in distributed file identity after registering. The sequence diagram in Figure 3
system such as IPFS and its hash are sent to respective explains detailed interactions between various stakeholders
participants and stored in the blockchain ledger. in the AM supply chain. Each user will be able to register and
The 3D printing workshop will use the digital product de- logon using their respective Ethereum address before being
sign to print the product ordered by the customer. Throughout able to start sending or receiving transactions.
the printing process, cameras and IoT sensor devices will
record the printing process and various environmental condi- IV. IMPLEMENTATION
tions such as temperature, vibrations, and pressure, etc. Once In this section we discuss the implementation and testing of
printing is completed, all IoT devices and camera records an Ethereum smart contract for spare part AM, the smart
will be uploaded to the IPFS and hashed in the blockchain contract is created by the manufacturer and used to track and
ledger. The hash for the control measures recorded during govern the end-to-end process of ordering, designing, and
the printing process are transmitted to the Attestation and printing a product till the delivery to customer. The smart
Certification Authority accessed via IPFS to verify quality contract was written in Solidity language and compiled using
control measures. Further, if the printed spare part is compli- Remix IDE.
ant, a notification is transmitted to the workshop and recorded When a customer requests a product to be designed and
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 W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

FIGURE 2: System architecture, major components, key stakeholders and the interactions among them

printed, the manufacturer will create an object for the prod- will provide an offer to print the approved design, when the
uct, providing parameters such as a unique ID, the customer customer approves the workshop offer, the workshop starts
ID, and the owner ID. Initially, the owner of the smart con- printing the spare part order recording the readings of the
tract will be the manufacturer. Ownership can be transferred environment using IoT devices.
from the product designer represented by the manufacturer, After finishing the production, the workshop will request
to the workshop, and finally, to the customer. Once the approval from the Certification Authority and the customer,
product object is created, the customer can upload additional similar to the design approval procedure. Once the product
details, such as the quantity and specific customization. Off- is approved, it will be sent to the customer through a local
chain storage such as IPFS is used to store the digital design delivery. The customer acknowledges the receipt of the spare
data and documents, only the IPFS hash will be recorded on part and the transaction gets updated and notified to all stake-
chain and used by the smart contract and among stakeholders. holders. Figure 3 shows the sequence diagram of the pro-
After submitting a request for spare part manufacturing, posed distributed additive manufacturing blockchain-based
a customer receives an offer from the manufacturer with supply network. We now present the detailed algorithms that
specific details on material used (metal, plastics, epoxy resin represent various functions and working principles of the
etc.), quantity, price, delivery date and specifications avail- smart contract.
able. The customer, after being notified by an event in the
smart contract, makes a decision to accept or reject the offer. A. ADD A NEW PRODUCT
The customer’s decision will be announced to the man- When a customer submits an order for a product, the man-
ufacturer. If the offer is accepted, the manufacturer will ufacturer will initiate the function “new product” in the
assign a designer to create and submit the product design smart contract. Algorithm 1 details the process of adding
and initiate the design phase. A request to approve the design a new object to the list of products. This request includes
will be sent to the customer and the Certification Authority the manufacturer ID and the customer ID. An object of type
through the function calls. When the design is approved by “product” will be created with a unique ID. The owner of this
the Certification Authority and the customer, the 3D printing product will be the manufacturer, and it will be associated
workshop receives a notification. The 3D Printing workshop with the customer through the customer ID. Customers can
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W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

Sequence Diagram of 3D Printed Product's Order Flow

SCOrder-Flow Manufacturer 3D Printing  Certification

Customer IPFS
(Design Creator)  Workshop Authority 

 Manufacturer Creates Smart Contract SCOrder-Flow()

SCOrder-Flow is created    

Customer uploads Order Details to IPFS (product details, quantity)

Customer Requests Offer () 

Asking for Offer

Manufacturer Provides Offer (Price)

Offer Provided

Customer Accepts Offer () 

Initiating Design

Manufacturer's Designer Uploads Design to IPFS 

Manufacturer Asks for Design Approval ()

Asking for Design Approval

Authority (Approves/Denies) Design ()

Design is Finished and Approved by Authority

Customer Accepts Design and Processes Payment ()

 Design is Ready for Printing and Ownership is Transferred

Workshop Offers Printing Design ()

Workshop Offering Printing 

Customer Approves Workshop ()

 Initiate Printing and Activate IoT Devices and Cameras 

 Workshop Uploads Records to IPFS (Camera footage, final product image, IoT devices readings)

Workshop Asks for Product Approval ()

 Asking for Product Approval

Authority (Approves/Denies) Final Product () 

Final Product is Approved  by Authority

Customer Picksup Product and Processes Payment ()

Function
Product is received and payments are settled Event

FIGURE 3: Order flow sequence diagram demonstrating all the interactions between different participants of the smart
contract
have several products in one order with the manufacturer, material, specifications, and any customization required. The
and the same smart contract can track and govern all ordered smart contract will validate the authenticity of the customer
products. An event will be sent to notify the customer of the and will allow the customer to provide the uploaded spec-
creation of the new product object. ifications files IPFS hash. The hash will be stored as a
parameter of the product’s object. The smart contract will
issue an event to request the manufacturer for an offer.
B. REQUEST AN OFFER
Algorithm 2 depicts the process of uploading the details
of the product by the customer. The algorithm will take as
input the customer ID, product ID, and the IPFS hash of the
order details, order details can include quantity, delivery date,
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 W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

Algorithm 1: Add a new product Algorithm 3: Manufacturer Providing Offer

input : Manufacturer ID ,Customer ID input : Manufacturer ID,Product ID,Price
1 if Caller == Manufacturer then 1 if Caller == Manufacturer then
2 Add new product ID 2 Product ID Price = Price.
3 Product ID = New ID 3 Create a notification that the offer is ready.
4 Define Owner of new Product 4 end
5 Product Owner ID = Manufacturer’s ID 5 else
6 Product Customer ID = Customer’s ID 6 Revert contract state and show an error.
7 Create a notification that a new product is created 7 end
(Event)
8 end
9 else
the manufacturer about the customer approval and request to
10 Revert contract state and show an error.
commence spare part designing. Otherwise, if the customer
11 end
rejects an event will be issued to notify the manufacturer
about the rejection.
Algorithm 2: Request an Offer
input : Customer ID,Product ID, IPFS Hash of order
Algorithm 4: Response to Design Offer
details
1 if Caller == Customer then
input : Customer ID,Product ID,Decision
1 if Caller == Customer then
2 if Product Customer ID == Customer ID then
3 Product ID Specifications = 2 if Product Customer ID == Customer ID then
Specifications(IPFS Hash of order details) 3 Customer Decision = Decision.
4 Create a notification that the customer is 4 if Decision == True then
asking for offer (Event) 5 end
5 end 6 Create a notification that the customer
6 else accepted the offer and Initiate Designing
7 Revert contract state and show an error. (Event). else
8 end 7 Create a notification that the customer
9 end rejected the offer (Event).
10 else 8 end
11 Revert contract state and show an error. 9 end
12 end 10 else
11 Revert contract state and show an error.
12 end
13 end
C. MANUFACTURER PROVIDING OFFER
14 else
The manufacturer will provide an offer for the product 15 Revert contract state and show an error.
requested by the customer using Algorithm 3. The manu- 16 end
facturer ID, product ID, and the offer price will be used as
inputs. Other inputs that can be considered are the delivery
time, material, and quantity available. After finalizing and
uploading the offer, an event will be sent by the smart E. REQUEST DESIGN APPROVAL
contract to notify the customer with the offer and requesting When the design is ready, the manufacturer will upload
customer decision, which can be either accept or reject the the design files to IPFS and generate a hash, subsequently
proposed design offer. the smart contract issues an event requesting approval by
the Certification Authority. This request will include the
customer ID, product ID, and the IPFS hash of the uploaded
D. RESPONSE TO DESIGN OFFER spare part design to IPFS to enable the Certification Authority
Algorithm 4 allows the customer to accept or reject the offer to examine if it meets the standards and customer design
provided by the manufacturer. The smart contract will check specifications. This function is presented in Algorithm (5).
if the customer is indeed the stakeholder associated with the
product. If yes, the smart contract will take the customer’s
decision (accept/reject) and add it to the product details. Two F. AUTHORITY DESIGN APPROVAL
possible outcomes are expected, the customer may either Given the product ID, the Certification Authority will be
accept the offer and then, as a result, the contract will notify able to access the details of the product including the IPFS
8 VOLUME 4, 2016
W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

Algorithm 5: Request Design Approval be notified. Any disputes arising on can be solved by the
input : Manufacturer ID,Product ID, IPFS Hash of arbitrator.
Design details
1 if Caller == Manufacturer then
2 if Product Owner ID == Manufacturer ID then Algorithm 7: Accept Design, Payment Process and
3 Design ID Specifications = Transfer of Ownership
Specifications(IPFS Hash). input : Customer ID,Product ID,Design Decision
4 Create a notification that the Manufacturer is 1 if Caller == Customer then
asking for Design Approval (Event). 2 if Product Customer ID == Customer ID then
5 end 3 Customer Design Decision = Design Decision.
6 else 4 if Design Decision == True then
7 Revert contract state and show an error.
5 end
8 end
6 Product Owner ID = Customer ID
9 end
7 Create a notification that the customer
10 else
Approved the Design, payment settled and
11 Revert contract state and show an error.
Ownership is transferred (Event).
12 end
8 else
9 Create a notification that the customer
rejected the Design (Event).
hash of the spare part design and any relevant documents. 10 end
In Algorithm (6) we present the design approval process by 11 end
the Authority. If the Authority approves the design then a 12 else
notification will be issued to inform customer. However, if 13 Revert contract state and show an error.
the Authority rejects an event will be issued to notify the 14 end
manufacturer and the customer with the rejection. 15 end
16 else
17 Revert contract state and show an error.
Algorithm 6: Authority Design Approval
18 end
input : Authority ID,Product ID,Authority-Decision
1 if Caller == Authority then
2 Authority Decision = Authority-Decision.
3 if Decision == True then H. WORKSHOP OFFERING PRINTING
4 end Once design is approved and ownership is transferred to
5 Create a notification that the Authority accepted customer. Printing workshop will receive the notification and
the Design(Event). consequently will submit an offer, and the customer will be
6 else notified through an event triggered by the smart contract as
7 Create a notification that the Authority per Algorithm (8). Inputs will be Workshop ID, Product ID
rejected the Design (Event). and the offered printing price. Other inputs that can be added
8 end are the location of the workshop, time to print the product
9 end and printer specifications.
10 else
11 Revert contract state and show an error.
12 end
Algorithm 8: Workshop Offering Printing
input : Workshop ID,Product ID,Printing Price
1 if Caller == Workshop then
G. ACCEPT DESIGN, PAYMENT PROCESS AND 2 Product ID printing Price = Printing Price.
TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP 3 Create a notification that the workshop’s offer is
Algorithm (7) presents the decision and choices of the Certi- ready.
fication Authority and customer regarding the manufacturer 4 end
proposed design. If the customer accepts the design and pro- 5 else
cesses the payment, the ownership of the design is transferred 6 Revert contract state and show an error.
to the customer. The manufacturer will be notified about the 7 end
decision of the customer, so interested printing workshops
can offer to print and deliver the spare part. As an alternative,
when the customer rejects the design, the manufacturer will
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 W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

I. CUSTOMER RESPONSE TO WORKSHOP OFFER Algorithm (10).

Algorithm (9) allows the customer to accept or deny the
offer provided by the Workshop. The smart contract will
validate if the right customer is the one associated with the Algorithm 10: Requesting Product Approval by Cer-
product by verifying the customer Ethereum address, and tification Authority
if the customer approves, the smart contract will take the input : Wrokshop ID,Product ID, IPFS Hash of
customer’s decision and add it to he product details. Smart Printing Records
contract will send an event to notify the Workshop to begin 1 if Caller == Workshop then
Printing and Initiate recording of the quality parameters and 2 Design ID Specifications = Specifications(IPFS
readings of the environment using IoT devices and cameras, Hash of Printing Records).
those readings will be needed to verify the conditions of 3 Create a notification that the Workshop is asking
printing and authenticate the final printed product quality and for Product Approval (Event).
finishing. 4 end
5 else
6 Revert contract state and show an error.
Algorithm 9: Customer Response to Workshop Offer 7 end
input : Customer ID,Product ID,Printing Decision
1 if Caller == Customer then
2 if Product Customer ID == Customer ID then
K. PRODUCT APPROVAL BY CERTIFICATION
3 Customer Printing Decision = Printing
AUTHORITY
Decision.
4 if Printing Decision == True then Similar to Approval/rejection of product in Algorithm (6),
the decision reported by the Certification Authority and the
5 end
workshop is notified with the Authority decision, the decision
6 Create a notification that the customer
will be reported as a (Yes/No) value. The customer is also
accepted the Workshop’s offer,Start Printing
notified of the Authority decision. Once the final product is
and Initiate Cameras and IoT devices
approved, the customer will be able to approve/reject the 3D
(Event).
printing workshop product is presented in the next algorithm.
7 else
8 Create a notification that the customer
rejected the Workshop’s offer (Event). Algorithm 11: Product Approval by Certification
9 end
Authority
10 end
11 else input : Authority ID,Product
12 Revert contract state and show an error. ID,Authority-Final-Decision
1 if Caller == Authority then
13 end
14 end 2 Authority Decision = Authority-Final-Decision.
15 else 3 if Decision == True then
16 Revert contract state and show an error. 4 end
17 end 5 Create a notification that the Authority accepted
the Product(Event).
6 else
7 Create a notification that the Authority
J. REQUESTING PRODUCT APPROVAL BY rejected the Product (Event).
CERTIFICATION AUTHORITY 8 end
Once Printing is done, the 3D prinitng Workshop will upload 9 end
the final printed product details, images and recordings 10 else
obtained during the printing process from cameras and IoT 11 Revert contract state and show an error.
devices to IPFS. The quality parameters can be temperature, 12 end
pressure and vibration recordings throughout the printing
process, deviations from normal conditions can be reported
and recorded on chain to facilitate data storage to make
procedures more flexible. The 3D printing workshop adds L. CUSTOMER PRODUCT APPROVAL AND PAYMENT
the IPFS hash to the product details, which will trigger the When the Certification Authority’s decision is to accept
smart contract to notify the Certification Authority requesting the product, the customer would have the choice to either
approval. This request will include the customer ID, product accept or reject the design, explained in algorithm 12. If the
ID, and the IPFS hash of printing records is described in customer accepts the product and processes the payment the
10 VOLUME 4, 2016
W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

3D printing workshop will be notified about the decision of

the customer, the spare part will be delivered to the customer
and the order will be declared as closed.

Algorithm 12: Customer Product Approval and Pay-

ment
input : Customer ID,Product ID,Design Decision
1 if Caller == Customer then
2 if Product Customer ID == Customer ID then
3 Customer Design Decision = Design Decision.
4 if Design Decision == True then
5 end
6 Create a notification that the customer
Approved the Design, payment settled and
Product is Picked-up by customer (Event).
7 else FIGURE 4: Output showing manufacturer successfully
8 Create a notification that the customer added a new product to the smart contract and alert
rejected the Product (Event). notifying to all participants
9 end
10 end
11 else important functions is presented here, demonstrating inputs
12 Revert contract state and show an error. and outputs logs resulting from the stakeholder interactions
13 end with the smart contract functions as follows:
14 end 1) Adding a new product: A new product is added by the
15 else manufacturer as shown in the logs in figure (4), the new
16 Revert contract state and show an error. product ID is (0), manufacturer ID is (1), customer ID
17 end is (2) and the transaction is from manufacturer EA to
the Smart Contract address. These logs shows the suc-
cessful addition of a new product and relating the new
product to a specific manufacturer (the smart contract
V. FUNCTIONALITY TESTING owner) and a specific customer, then the logs highlight
The developed smart contract was tested using Remix IDE, that an event is issued successfully announcing the
a versatile in-browser development and testing environment creation of the smart contract and the addition of a new
for the smart contract functions. In this section we present the product.
results of testing, function calls showing the corresponding 2) Workshop offers to printing the spare part: Both the
outputs and logs. For our testing scenarios, we assumed manufacturer transferring design of the product and the
four participants of the AM supply chain network interacting offer from workshop to print the spare part according
with the smart contract, the manufacturer, customer, Certifi- to the design provided are similar in execution. We
cation Authority and 3D printing workshop. The Ethereum present the scenario where the workshop offer is shown
addresses of the Manufacturer, Customer, Certification Au- in figure (5) as an example of the successful implemen-
thority, 3D Printing Workshop and the Smart Contract are tation, where transaction workshop ID is (4) is related
provided in table(1). to the same product (ID =0), and the logs shows that an
event is issued to request customer approval based on
TABLE 1: Ethereum addresses of all participants in the the workshop offer.
tested smart contract 3) The scenario where customer accepts the design offer
User Ethereum Address is similar to customer accepting workshop offer are
Manufacturer 0xAfd8741232Af159704385d54A683D3f6F50B3BB7 shown in figure (6). The input shows customer decision
Customer 0x104fb6298a35E2c471E5CD8455D4E769a9121803 (true) and the logs show a successful event by the smart
Authority 0xEc56b12C8DE3799d37586b512490326Fa898a5E2 contract that the offer related to product (ID=0) was
Workshop 0xEc5B8D573F024C20001107a14E0D464b9c1b8C68
Contract 0x93b78a5385552db8b1331f91e9e5f5c101bccc1f accepted.
4) Request price approval from customer: Figure (7) il-
lustrates the scenario from manufacturer to the smart
All functions have a state requirement or a condition that contract, the inputs are offered price (Price =5) and the
has been tested successfully. Several functions are similar in transaction logs demonstrate the event triggered by the
execution and results. Therefore, only results from testing smart contract asking for acceptance of the manufac-
VOLUME 4, 2016 11
 W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

FIGURE 5: Logs showing workshop (ID=4) requesting FIGURE 8: A successful approval granted to the smart
approval for its offer to print product (ID=0). contract of the final product.

FIGURE 7: Logs showing successful provision of an offer

to the smart contract by the Manufacturer and the an-
nouncement to the customer

5) Certification Authority Approves the final product, a

transaction from Authority (ID=3) to the smart contract
FIGURE 6: Execution of a successful acceptance of design
approving the final product (ID=0) as shown in the
offer by the customer
inputs where the decision is (true). Therefore, an event
is triggered to announce approval by the Authority of
the final printed product to be received by the customer.
figure (8) presents the successful transaction logs.

VI. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS

In this section we will present the cost analysis for the
Ethereum smart contract, followed by security analysis, and
finally some generalization and extensions on this paper’s
turer’s offer related to product (ID=0) and customer work are discussed.
(ID=2).
12 VOLUME 4, 2016
W. AlKhader et al.: Blockchain-Based Traceability and Management for Additive Manufacturing

TABLE 2: Gas costs of the smart contract functions.

Function Function Caller Transaction Execution Gas used Fastest Average Slow
Cost Cost Cost$ Cost$ Cost$
Create SC Manufacturer 3229184 2397780 5626964 $9.21696 $6.05687 $4.38903
Manufacturer Adds new product Manufacturer 86673 65017 151690 $0.0194 $0.16329 $0.11833
Customer Asking for Offer Customer 28016 6104 34120 $0.05589 $0.03672 $0.02661
Manufacturer Providing Offer Manufacturer 54202 32034 86236 $0.14126 $0.09282 $0.06727
Customer Accepts Price Offer Customer 26107 4323 30430 $0.04984 $0.03276 $0.02374
Manufacturer Asks for Design Approval Manufacturer 48419 26315 74734 $0.12241 $0.08045 $0.0583
Authority Approves design Authority 46259 24475 70734 $0.11586 $0.07614 $0.05518
Customer Approves Design Customer 31340 9556 40896 $0.06699 $0.04402 $0.0319
Workshop Offers Printing Workshop 25356 3764 29120 $0.0477 $0.03134 $0.02271
Customer Approves Workshop Customer 68787 47003 115790 $0.18966 $0.12464 $0.09032
Workshop Asks for Product Approval Workshop 25093 3501 28594 $0.04683 $0.03078 $0.02231
Authority Approve Final Product Authority 27087 5303 32390 $0.05306 $0.03487 $0.02527
Customer Approves Final Product Customer 25093 3501 28594 $0.04683 $0.03078 $0.02231

A. COST ANALYSIS ful adoption of technological interventions. In particular, in-

As our implementation and execution are carried using the tegrity, accountability, authorization and non-repudiation are
Ethereum blockchain, every transaction processed on the fundamental security properties which should be addressed
blockchain network consumes or is paid for with gas, which by a solution to achieve trusted supply chains within additive
is effectively paid in Ether (Ethereum currency). manufacturing. In this section, we present an overview of
The total cost of each function performed on the how our proposed solution addresses these security require-
blockchain network consists of two parts the transaction ments with empirical evaluation envisaged to be conducted
and execution gas costs. The execution cost represents the as part of our future work.
cost of the actual execution of the function code handling Integrity. For each product, the transaction history and
the translation on the blockchain network. It includes the data must be available for the users to track and trace the
cost of the internal storage in the smart contract as well as product to its origin. Our blockchain solution ensures the
any manipulation with the state. Moreover, the transaction integrity of all the events and logs leveraging cryptographic
cost includes other factors related to the deployment of the fundamentals of the blockchain technology. Moreover, prod-
contract and sending the data to the blockchain network [18]. uct design, readings, and images are stored on the IPFS
distributed servers and only storing the hash on the chain.
Table 2 shows the gas costs of the functions in the smart This ensures efficient utilization of on-chain storage thereby
contract as well as their prices in US Dollars. The gas price facilitating scalable and performance efficient operation.
used in Table 2 shows fastest (10.5 Gwei), the average gas Accountability. Efficient auditing is paramount to achieving
(6.9 Gwei), and the Slow (5 Gwei) price on April 10th, 2020, accountability within supply chains. Within our proposed
according to the ETH Gas Station [17]. The functions in solution, all events are logged in the tamper-proof blockchain
Table 2 are executed by the Manufacturer, Customer, Work- ledger thereby providing a secure log of all transactions
shop, or Authority, as seen in the Function Caller column of occurring within the AM supply chain. Furthermore, each
the table. participating entity is allocated a unique Ethereum address
As shown in the table overall, the typical cost for executing which facilitates identification of entities within the supply
individual functions are very small. This is because most chain. Through tamper-proof log of events and Ethereum-
changes in the state of variables conducted by the functions based identification of stakeholders, each participating entity
are relatively minor, and the costs in our smart contract oper- is accountable for its actions in the blockchain since each
ations are proportional to the changes in the state of the smart caller is traced back to their Ethereum address.
contract. Furthermore, the creation of the smart contract cost Non repudiation. Leveraging cryptographic fundamentals of
is comparatively higher than that of individual functions as the blockchain technology, all transactions within the AM
every line of code within a smart contract requires certain supply chain are stored within a tamper-proof log of events
amount of gas to be executed which therefore results in a associated within unique Ethereum addresses for each entity.
higher cost for the smart contract creation. However, this Consequently, an entity cannot deny their actions on the
higher cost is rendered acceptable, taking into consideration blockchain since all of the transactions are cryptographically
that a manufacturer can use one smart contract to operate signed and saved in the tamper-proof logs.
several design orders by adding new products to the same Authorization. Each participating entity is authorized to
contract. execute only specific functions in the smart contract. This
is achieved by verifying the Ethereum address of the caller
B. SECURITY ANALYSIS before allowing him to execute a function.
In a geographically diverse setting such as the additive manu- MITM and Replay Attacks. The security features of the
facturing supply chains, secure operation underpins success- blockchain facilitates protection against a MITM attack since
VOLUME 4, 2016 13
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT 58(7), 2200-2221, 2020.

This publication is based upon work supported by the Khalifa

University of Science and Technology under Award No.
RCII-2019-002 - Center for Digital Supply Chain and Op-
erations Management.

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