Search Results (5)

Counterfeiting is an important challenge in maintaining the security and sustainability of supply chains. This paper examines a supply chain consisting of a luxury goods manufacturer (and a retailer) in the presence of counterfeit goods. Inspired by the reality that both manufacturers and retailers have incentives to implement anti-counterfeiting, this paper combines the psychological impact of anti-counterfeiting efforts on consumers and discusses the impact of anti-counterfeiting efforts on pricing and profits. We find that: (1) anti-counterfeiting has a positive impact on the selling price of brand products and the firms’ profits. However, the impact on wholesale prices varies depending on who implements the anti-counterfeiting strategy. (2) Only when the quality of brand products is higher than the threshold, is the firm willing to input anti-counterfeiting efforts. Manufacturers in a reselling structure are more motivated to fight counterfeits. (3) Implementing anti-counterfeiting in a direct selling structure is the most effective strategy for manufacturers. Under a reselling structure, it is more beneficial for manufacturers to have the retailer input anti-counterfeiting efforts. Our study provides insights into the reasons why some manufacturers establish internal anti-counterfeiting teams under the direct selling structure, while others incentivize retailers to invest in anti-counterfeiting. Full article

The marking and surface structuring of various materials is important in various industrial fields such as biomaterials, luxury goods, anti-counterfeiting, automotive and aerospace, electronics and semiconductor industries, and others. Recent advances in laser technology, such as burst-mode lasers, have opened new ways of affecting the surfaces of various materials, inducing a different appearance and/or properties of the laser-exposed areas. From earlier studies, it is known that when splitting a single pulse into multiple pulses and thus creating a quasi-MHz–GHz repetition rate regime, it is possible to increase not only the ablation efficiency but it also provides the possibility to tune the heat in-flow into the surface. Such new regimes enable the control of the surface roughness as well as the optical properties and corrosion resistance. In this work, we analyze the effect of the different burst-mode regimes for the marking of stainless-steel samples, aiming to produce high-contrast marking having different shades of black/white color (black-gray-white). Moreover, we investigate the angular dependence of the reflected light after laser treatment numerically from the measured surface morphology Full article

In recent years, counterfeit luxury products have become a major concern for consumers worldwide. The reason for the proliferation of counterfeit products is that the manufacturing and distribution process is not transparent to consumers and this information can be easily falsified or altered by others. To solve this problem, this paper proposes the development of a management system using blockchain and smart contract technology to solve the problems of data forgery and data tampering, while tracking the information related to luxury products and ensuring the accuracy and authenticity of the relevant data, to achieve the purpose of luxury product anti-counterfeiting. When using Hyperledger Fabric to deploy the blockchain and execute smart contracts, all information related to the production and logistics process of luxury goods will be uploaded to the blockchain. No human intervention is required to create a complete, traceable, tamper-proof, and trusted repository. Compared to previous work, this paper combines blockchain technology with specific processes in the supply chain, employing a variety of security methods to secure the communication process. Moreover, our proposed solution is more flexible in transmission, with more secure protocols also making data harder to tamper with and falsify, thereby solving the problem of forgery and tracking of luxury products. Full article

Existing product anti-counterfeiting and traceability solutions across today’s internationally spanning supply chain networks are indeed developed and implemented with centralized system architecture relying on centralized authorities or intermediaries. Vulnerabilities of centralized product anti-counterfeiting solutions could possibly lead to system failure or susceptibility of malicious modifications performed on product records or various potential attacks to the system components by dishonest participant nodes traversing along the supply chain. Blockchain technology has progressed from simply being a use case of immutable ledger for cryptocurrency transactions, to a programmable interactive environment of developing decentralized and reliable applications addressing different use cases globally. Key areas of decentralization, fundamental system requirements, and feasible mechanisms of developing decentralized product anti-counterfeiting and traceability ecosystems utilizing blockchain technology are identified in this research, via a series of security analyses performed against solutions currently implemented in supply chain industry with centralized architecture. The decentralized solution will be a secure and immutable scientific data provenance tracking and management platform where provenance records, providing compelling properties on data integrity of luxurious goods, are recorded and verified automatically across the supply chain. Full article

An interesting research problem in the supply chain industry is evaluating and determining the provenance of physical goods—demonstrating the authenticity of luxury goods such as bottled wine. However, many supply chain systems and networks have been built and implemented with centralized system architecture, relying on centralized authorities or any form of intermediary, and leading to issues such as single-point processing, storage and failure, which could be susceptible to malicious modifications to product records or various potential attacks to system components by dishonest participant nodes traversing along the supply chain. Blockchain technology has evolved from merely being a decentralized, distributed and immutable ledger of cryptocurrency transactions to a programmable interactive environment for building decentralized and reliable applications addressing different use-cases and existing problems in the world. In this research, with a chosen research method of proof-by-demonstration, the Decentralized NFC-Enabled Anti-Counterfeiting System (dNAS) is proposed and developed, decentralizing a legacy anti-counterfeiting system of the supply-chain industry using Blockchain technology to facilitate trustworthy data provenance retrieval, verification and management, as well as strengthening the capability of the product’s anti-counterfeiting and traceability qualities in the wine industry, with the capacity to further extend this to the supply chain industry as a whole. The proposed dNAS utilizes a decentralized blockchain network with a consensus protocol compatible with the concept of enterprise blockchain, programmable smart contracts and a distributed file storage system to develop a secure and immutable scientific-data provenance tracking and management platform on which provenance records, providing compelling properties of the data integrity of luxurious goods, are recorded, verified and validated automatically. Full article