Design of a traceability system for a coffee supply chain based on blockchain and machine learning

Abstract

Purpose: This paper aims to develop a coffee supply chain traceability system based on Blockchain (BC) and Machine Learning (ML) with the aim of ensuring the quality of coffee beans production. BC functions to ensure supply chain performance, while the ML model ensures product quality.

Design/methodology/approach: Smart Contracts will be built on the Ethereum Virtual Machine BC network based on Ethereum. The ML model to identify good and bad green coffee beans will be built using different YOLO algorithms, which will go through training and validation stages, namely using the k-fold cross validation method. The ML model algorithm is based on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using YOLOv5m, YOLOv6m and YOLOv7. The best model will be chosen based on the results of cross-validation with test data in the form of coffee image data that the model has never seen (unseen data). The whole process of building the ML model is done on the Google Collab Pro+ Virtual Machine.

Findings: YOLOv5m outperformed the other models in both non-augmented and augmented training datasets, highlighting the proficiency of YOLOv5m in managing compact datasets and its resilience in the face of data augmentation, positioning it as a prime selection for quality discernment tasks within the realm of green coffee beans. The smart contracts offer an all-encompassing approach for user management, monitoring product status, and presenting traceability data within the framework of coffee plantation administration.

Originality/value: This research contributes to the development of blockchain network as a solution to implement traceability systems along coffee supply chains in Indonesia. Moreover, it shows that while blockchain can ensure the process of production along the coffee supply to follow certain guidelines, machine learning can verify whether the product that was produced by utilizing BC is of high quality/acceptable.