Blockchain Capabilities to Improve the Productivity of Maritime Logistics Processes: Review, Taxonomy, Open Challenges and Future Trends

This paper surveys recent publications on maritime logistics with a focus on blockchain capabilities. Maritime logistics plays an important role in global trade and an important part of the global economy depends on it. The growth of world trade has led to the creation of various systems that are prone to error and fraud, the current supply chain needs to connect and trust many intermediaries which not only increase abuse and errors but also it will increase cost and time in the chain. Hence, transparency and stability are highly demanded. On the other hand, with the onset of the fourth industrial revolution, a new approach called “blockchain” was introduced which can have very important applications in maritime logistics. As this novel technology is in its early stages of development, its applications in maritime logistics have not been specifically investigated. So, this paper takes a deep dive into blockchain technology capabilities for maritime logistics by reviewing relevant scientific journal papers since 2014. The paper also discusses and challenges the current operational paradigms and by categorizing efforts, provides a taxonomy of research topics in maritime logistics. Finally, the paper in addition to presenting challenges, identifies new avenues for academic research based on current trends and development.