The miniaturization and modularization of production capacity brings with it not only greater agility and efficiency, but also increased flexibility in the form of mobility. This flexibility allows production capacity to be moved when and where it is most needed, generating new business opportunities, e.g., allowing modular units to be rented, leased, or shared. This flexibility, however, requires information and control systems that ensure a correct and secure flow of information between different stakeholders of the supply chain. Based on this, the present article characterizes the concept of software-defined mobile supply chains, presenting its main requirements, opportunities, and limitations. In addition, we present two case studies in which the proposed concept is evaluated in order to demonstrate its applicability. Here, due to the new optimization problems that arise when considering mobile facilities, special interest is given to the planning and control of the required operations, as well as the difficulties associated with the exchange of physical and intellectual assets between different stakeholders.

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This research investigates the tension between trust and confidentiality in Mobile Supply Chains (MSCs), where a production asset that is owned by one of the partners is outsourced to another partner of the supply chain for the production of goods, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals. The novelty of the MSC concept is to be found in its innovative and sustainable approach to production and operation processes in supply chains. Implementation of the MSC model could, however, raise trust and confidentiality concerns. The interplay of trust and confidentiality, or preservation of information privacy, between partners plays a central role in the supply chains, particularly because they are genuinely dependent on each other. Qualitative data analysis was used, in which semi-structured interviews with the experts from the chemical and pharmaceutical industries in Germany were conducted to investigate the tension between trust and confidentiality, and important factors affecting it. The results of the study present four different integration scenarios, namely, the low-quality, conservative, grey-box, and innovation scenarios, which consider different levels of trust, confidentiality and information sharing. Subsequently, the tension between trust and confidentiality is analyzed within these scenarios, and three effective strategies which encourage partners to balance the tension between trust and confidentiality are proposed. The study indicates that the balance between trust and confidentiality can be maintained in some scenarios when critical factors such as transparency, trust negotiation, and a reward-sharing system are present.