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This paper deals with the organizing of interactive product development. Developing products in interaction between firms may provide benefits in terms of specialization, increased innovation, and possibilities to perform development activities in parallel. However, the differentiation of product development among a number of firms also implies that various dependencies need to be dealt with across firm boundaries. How dependencies may be dealt with across firms is related to how product development is organized. The purpose of the paper is to explore dependencies and how interactive product development may be organized with regard to these dependencies.

The analytical framework is based on the industrial network approach, and deals with the development of products in terms of adaptation and combination of heterogeneous resources. There are dependencies between resources, that is, they are embedded, implying that no resource can be developed in isolation. The characteristics of and dependencies related to four main categories of resources (products, production facilities, business units and business relationships) provide a basis for analyzing the organizing of interactive product development.

Three in-depth case studies are used to explore the organizing of interactive product development with regard to dependencies. The first two cases are based on the development of the electrical system and the seats for Volvo’s large car platform (P2), performed in interaction with Delphi and Lear respectively. The third case is based on the interaction between Scania and Dayco/DFC Tech for the development of various pipes and hoses for a new truck model.

The analysis is focused on what different dependencies the firms considered and dealt with, and how product development was organized with regard to these dependencies. It is concluded that there is a complex and dynamic pattern of dependencies that reaches far beyond the developed product as well as beyond individual business units. To deal with these dependencies, development may be organized in teams where several business units are represented. This enables interaction between different business units’ resource collections, which is important for resource adaptation as well as for innovation. The delimiting and relating functions of the team boundary are elaborated upon and it is argued that also teams may be regarded as actors. It is also concluded that a modular product structure may entail a modular organization with regard to the teams, though, interaction between business units and teams is needed. A strong connection between the technical structure and the organizational structure is identified and it is concluded that policies regarding the technical structure (e.g. concerning “carry-over”) cannot be separated from the management of the organizational structure (e.g. the supplier structure). The organizing of product development is in itself a complex and dynamic task that needs to be subject to interaction between business units.

TO say that the Twenty‐fourth S.B.A.C. Show was an unqualified success is perhaps to gild the lily. True there were disappointments— the delay which kept the TSR‐2 on the ground until well after the Show being one—but on the whole the British industry was well pleased with Farnborough week and if future sales could be related to the number of visitors then the order books would be full for many years to come. The total attendance at the Show was well over 400,000—this figure including just under 300,000 members of the public who paid to enter on the last three days of the Show. Those who argued in favour of allowing a two‐year interval between the 1962 Show and this one seem to be fully vindicated, for these attendance figures are an all‐time record. This augurs well for the future for it would appear that potential customers from overseas are still anxious to attend the Farnborough Show, while the public attendance figures indicate that Britain is still air‐minded to a very healthy degree. It is difficult to pick out any one feature or even one aircraft as being really outstanding at Farnborough, but certainly the range of rear‐engined civil jets (HS. 125, BAC One‐Eleven, Trident and VCIQ) served as a re‐minder that British aeronautical engineering prowess is without parallel, while the number of rotorcraft to be seen in the flying display empha‐sized the growing importance of the helicopter in both civil and military operations. As far as the value of Farnborough is concerned, it is certainly a most useful shop window for British aerospace products, and if few new orders are actually received at Farnborough, a very large number are announced— as our ’Orders and Contracts' column on page 332 bears witness. It is not possible to cover every exhibit displayed at the Farnborough Show but the following report describes a wide cross‐section beginning with the exhibits of the major airframe and engine companies.

Accles & Pollock Ltd. of Oldbury, Worcestershire, a TI Steel Tube Division company, will be exhibiting a comprehensive range of precision steel tube and tubular products, including plain, annularly convoluted and thin wall tube, at Farnborough.

To maintain liquid‐tightness in an integral wing fuel tank at the junction of the stringers 12, 13 and the bulkhead 10 forming the end wall of the tank, each stringer is divided into inner and outer portions 12, 13 respectively, the webs of the two portions being in alignment and bolted to a cylindrical connector 14 passing through a hole in the bulkhead, the stringer webs being disposed in vertical longitudinal slots 25, 29 in the connector which grips the bulkhead between a collar 24 and nut 22. Scaling washers 20, 21 bear against the bulkhead and the vertical flange 18 of an angle‐section member supporting the bulkhead. The stringer dangers are riveted to the wing skin 11 and ribs 16. During assembly the web of the outer stringer section 13 is first inserted in the slot 25 and bolted to the connector 14, and the latter with the ring 21 in pisition is then passed through the hole in the bulkhead and the nut 22 and ring 20 screwed into position, after which the inner stringer section 12 is inserted in the slot 29 and bolted to the connector 14.

The Aviation Division of the Dunlop Co. Ltd. (Engineering Group) is to install Dynex power units, designed and built by Applied Power (U.K.) Ltd., in the latest design of hydraulic production test rigs at the Division's Coventry factory. The company is completely re‐equipping its production test facilities by providing every rig with the higher pressures and flows which future trends in fluid technology will demand, and to ensure that each testing station is capable of handling service fluids currently in use, including kerosene, DTD 585, Skydrol, Lockheed 22 and Oronite.

The Electroplating Products and Equipment Business Area of Degussa AG, Frankfurt am Main, Federal Republic of Germany, has begun to supply a new selective electroplating plant. Under a co‐operation agreement with the Telmec company of Milan, Italy, this business area of Degussa, which is based in Schwäbisch Gmüd, Germany, has begun to market the Telmec SL 6 ‘Tab Plater’ throughout the world, with the exception of Italy and France. The equipment was developed specially for manufacturers of printed circuit boards, and is used for the continuous electroplating of strip contacts on these boards.

The purpose of this paper is to develop identification system for fiber optic connectors in passive distribution cabinets. The system should have alternative power supply and wireless communication unlike the identification systems commercially available, which will make the system fully autonomous.

Detailed project and realization of real demonstrator of fully autonomous identification system. After the realization of the demonstrator, its optimization was performed.

It is possible to build fully autonomous identification system which requires 15.6 mJ energy to perform one cycle of identification process. Moreover, it is possible to use the alternative power method to supply this system.

Fully autonomous identification system of fiber optic connectors with alternative power supply and wireless communication.

The purpose of this paper is to review the 2007 ATExpo Show and related Electronics Assembly Show, Quality, PlasTec and National Manufacturing Week Shows held jointly in Chicago.

In‐depth interviews were conducted with exhibitors who provide assembly systems, controls, grippers and other assembly systems components.

Though automated assembly has been around many decades, suppliers have continued to innovate new technologies, controllers and software that enhance the automated assembly process.

The paper is of value in confirming that suppliers are continuing to develop assembly cells, modular elements, software and other related components that help make the design and commissioning of systems faster and cheaper. Automated assembly is a truly competitive approach to reducing cost of assembly, quality of products produced and efficiently managing resources.

During a two‐week voyage of the S.S. Israel from Haifa to New York, experiments were conducted with a platinum‐clad trailing anode system for cathodic protection. Preparation for the voyage and day‐to‐day working of the experiments are described as are the successful efforts made to overcome the mechanical difficulties that arose. Concrete results that emerge indicate a growing and glowing future for such installations on large ships.