Leveraging Blockchain and Smart Contracts for a New Frontier in Asset Management

This study explores the potential applications of blockchain technology to enhance data authenticity and security in real-time monitoring systems. Considering the building or the structure (e.g., bridge, building frame), both systems can be monitored via IoT. The collected data enable the construction of an information model (digital shadow). Such conceptual models derived from the data can then be certified via blockchain, on which smart contracts can be set up. From this approach, two different strategic paths can be highlighted in the area of efficiency and security. The first is related to the structural domain and concerns the identification of emergency situations through automatic algorithmic processing of the raw data collected by sensors: if IoT identifies the exceeding of a safety threshold, for example, thus associated with abnormal behavior or damage, this condition is mapped and certified in real time. The smart contract set on the blockchain can at this point automatically arrange for intervention on the emergency condition (operators warning, interventions, recovery actions, etc.). On the other hand, the certification of the raw data, in parallel with the certification of the processed data, via blockchain allows for the reconstruction of the emergency condition from the perspective of scenario but also in terms of legal implications. The same blockchain and smart contract associative process can be translated from the emergency scenario to the service scenario for the management of routine maintenance contracts