  Despite Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have reduced the
information asymmetry and increased the degree of interorganizational
collaboration, the companies participating a supply chain are less inclined to
share data when information is sensible and partners cannot be fully trusted.
In such a context, Blockchain is a decentralized certificate authority that may
provide economic and operational benefits but companies operating in a supply
chain claim to have little knowledge about Blockchain due to its novelty and to
the lack of use cases and application studies. In this work, a software
connector has been designed and developed to connect an Ethereum-like
blockchain with the enterprises' information systems to allow companies to
share information with their partners with different levels of visibility and
to check data authenticity, integrity and invariability over time through the
blockchain, thus building trust. In order to explore the potential of deploying
the blockchain in a supply chain, a simulation model has been developed to
recreate the supply chain operations and integrated with the blockchain through
the same software connector to carry out a scenario statistical analysis.
Application results shows how blockchain technology is a convenient instrument
to overcome collaboration and trust issues in a supply chain, to increase the
supply chain overall performance, to minimize the negative consequences of
information asymmetry over the echelons of a supply chain but also to
discourage companies from any misconduct (e.g. counterfeiting data or low data
accuracy).
