A BLOCKCHAIN BASED SMART CONTRACT MODEL FOR TENDERING

Abstract

nformation technology is the backbone for all 21st -century organizations that are looking forward to offering better customer service and gaining a competitive advantage. Today, the blockchain technology is being adopted by several organizations such as financial service providers, healthcare, agriculture, and even government sectors. Nonetheless, the procurement sector has adopted information technology in its processes especially with the advent of E-procurement technology. However, the tendering sector has not been able to take advantage of the new blockchain technology. This study focuses on the blockchain and its BYOE (Bring Your Own Encryption) concept in the procurement sector. Using a proof of concept approach the research came up with a blockchain-based procurement model for organizations. The model was designed following ASD approach. While Ethereum based solidity smart contract with Truffle running on 127.0.0.1:9545 and MetaMask installation was configured for the running environment. In addition, Ganache running on localhost 127.0.0.1:7545 for the graphical interface was realized. The running hosted model is available at https://gov.chimera-iot.co.ke/index.php. The model prototype was evaluated based on the model goals and software quality attributes. Software quality attributes, was a purely technical evaluation that used test cases to see if the model requirements were attained. To ascertain the model goals, the evaluation intended to identify issues related to the various model components and gauge user experience. At the end of the evaluation process, the functional testing proved that all the model functional and system requirements were satisfied. The feedback from the users also indicated that most of the participants were able to accomplish all the model functionalities. Participants also strongly agreed that the model satisfied all the goals and software quality attributes. The model verification and validation results showed that the model design satisfied all the intended objectives. The model was able to automatically initiate the tender, place bid and perform bid evaluation & relay bid results with relevant bid reports. The functional model was able to provide transparencies by ensuring bids are not concealed and ensuring immutability of transaction thus ensuring transparency and openness. The overall idea was therefore found to be feasible and practical