Blockchain-Based Cloud Manufacturing SCM System for Collaborative Enterprise Manufacturing: A Case Study of Transport Manufacturing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Strengths:
(+) The paper is well-written.
(+) The problem is important.
(+) The problem is well-defined.
(+) The references are appropriate.
(+) The proposed method is well-explained.
(+) The method is innovative.


Weaknesses:
(-) There are English issues.
(-) References are inadequate.
(-) The introduction must be improved.
(-) The related work section must be enhanced.
(-) Inconsistent notation.


==== ENGLISH ====

The paper has several typos. Authors need to proofread the paper to eliminate all of them.

==== FIGURES ====

The text of some figure(s) is too small. Authors should make sure that the text can be read if printed on paper.

Some figure(s) are blur. Authors should either use a higher resolution figure(s) or redo them as vector graphics.

==== REFERENCES ====

The literature review is incomplete. Several relevant references are missing.

There are many irrelevant references. Authors should remove them to keep those that are closely related to the topic of the paper.

The literature review is incomplete. Several relevant references are missing.

 

The paper should be updated to include more recent references, preferably from the last 2 or 3 years. Blockchain-based cloud manufacturing SCM system and Machiene learning with implementation of IoT in Smart Cities with Security are interrelated and equally important, hence we would like to see more information related to Empowering Patients in Self-Care Programs Using Mobile Agents in your study added to the related work/introduction section. Here is a suggestion to follow and refer to " Sustainable virtual reality patient rehabilitation systems with IoT sensors using virtual smart cities" in Sustainability 13 (9), 4716”, and “Quantum Diffie–Hellman Extended to Dynamic Quantum Group Key Agreement for e-Healthcare Multi-Agent Systems in Smart Cities”, and "Smart cities to improve mobility and quality of life of the visually impaired" 

==== INTRODUCTION ====

The authors should add more references in the introduction to support the claims.

The authors need to better explain the context of this research, including why the research problem is important.

The roadmap of the paper should be written in the introduction section, such as the rest of the paper….

 

The introduction should clearly explain the key limitations of prior work that are relevant to this paper. Where it is also important to include this solution as part of some technical aspects to understand its viability in the industry which can be accomplished by utilising advanced resource allocation schemes under different environemnt and techniques. You can refer to the following study for more details: "A Proposed Resource-Aware Time-Constrained Scheduling Mechanism for DSME based IoV Networks, 2021 IEEE 94th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2021-Fall), 1-7, and "Centralized Graph based TSCH Scheduling for IoT Network Applications, 2021 IEEE Intl Conf on Parallel & Distributed Processing with Application", and "QoE control, monitoring, and management strategies" 

==== RELATED WORK ====

The authors should explain clearly what the differences are between the prior work and the solution presented in this paper.

The authors should add a table that compares the key characteristics of prior work to highlight their differences and limitations. The authors may also consider adding a line in the table to describe the proposed solution.

==== NOTATIONS ====

There are inconsistencies in the notations used throughout the paper. Please make it consistent.

Acronyms are mentioned in the abstract but they are not used in the abstract again. So no need to use acronyms.
Some acronyms are defined many times in the main text, please revise them.

 

Author Response

Good day to you

Kindly find my response to issues raised

1. Proofread the manuscript to rectify grammatical and spelling errors.
2. Replaced diagram with high resolution image.
3. Rectified notation challenge.
4. Used recent references and cross checked references so that they match.
5. Improved introduction section and clarified issues brought forth.
6. Key limitation of the study highlighted. 
7. Included table of related works
8.  Revised acronyms.

Reviewer 2 Report

- What are the limitations observed from existing literature that motivated the current study?

- Discuss about the key contributions of this work.

- The inferences/findings from literature review have to be summarized in the form of a table.

- The authors can discuss about how the proposed approach can be scaled to Industry 5.0 and how blockchain can be helpful in SCM 5.0 as discussed in Industry 5.0: A survey on enabling technologies and potential applications.

- Blockchain usually incurs high latency. How can this issue addressed in mission critical SCM based applications? The authors can discuss few of teh solutions for the same.

- What are the limitations and future scope of this study?

Author Response

Good day to you

Kindly find my response to issues raised

1. The limitations in existing solutions that motivated the study, are centered on that there has developed solutions did not look at the aspect of DevOps for industrial systems. Moreover, the systems were not taking advantage of changes that are being experienced in software development.
2. Key discussions on the importance of this work have added in-text.
3. Revised work with consideration on how the work fits into Industry 5.0. 
4. Blockchain experiences high latency in systems, however the work focused more on serverless computing. Cloud service providers are responsible for underlying servers and also ensure their commit to agreed Service Level Agreement (SLA).
5. The limitations of the work have been added in-text; the system has not been tested on is strength towards cyber attacks. 
6. The developed system is focused on a single manufacturer interacting with multiple suppliers. Future work consideration looks at multiple manufacturers and multiple suppliers interacting, using different cloud service providers.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I am satisfied with the modification made by the authors.

Author Response

Good day Dr/Prof

The authors take this opportunity to thank you for taking your time to review our work. We are grateful for the remarks/insights provided, which the authors had oversight on. The authors are grateful that revisions made were found satisfactory.

Kind regards

Reviewer 2 Report

 Thank you very much for your efforts! I am satisfied with the revisions and I recommend the article for publication.

Author Response

Good Day Dr/Prof

The authors are thankful for the time and effort taken to review our work. The comments and reviews passed gave insights on oversights the authors had made. We are grateful that revisions made were found satisfactory, and for the recommendation. 

Kind regards