Cassandra-based data repository design for food supply chain traceability

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to design a supply chain database schema for Cassandra to store real-time data generated by Radio Frequency IDentification technology in a traceability system. Design/methodology/approach The real-time data generated in such traceability systems are of high frequency and volume, making it difficult to handle by traditional relational database technologies. To overcome this difficulty, a NoSQL database repository based on Casandra is proposed. The efficacy of the proposed schema is compared with two such databases, document-based MongoDB and column family-based Cassandra, which are suitable for storing traceability data. Findings The proposed Cassandra-based data repository outperforms the traditional Structured Query Language-based and MongoDB system from the literature in terms of concurrent reading, and works at par with respect to writing and updating of tracing queries. Originality/value The proposed schema is able to store the real-time data generated in a supply chain with low latency. To test the performance of the Cassandra-based data repository, a test-bed is designed in the lab and supply chain operations of Indian Public Distribution System are simulated to generate data.