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This paper is the second of a three‐part series in which the authors identify best practice for implementing virtual teamworking to aid concurrent engineering. Part 1 examined how five key texts on virtual teamworking contribute to an understanding of how to introduce virtual working to enable concurrent engineering. It developed a structure for comparing and contrasting the texts for this purpose. In Part 2, four general areas of concern are identified from these texts. The authors suggest five other issues, derived from other texts and practical experience important to concurrent engineering involving the supply chain. Part 3 will then synthesise the key elements of a methodology for introducing virtual teaming in a design and manufacture supply chain utilising concurrent engineering.

This paper is the first of a three part series in which the authors identify best practice for implementing virtual teamworking to aid concurrent engineering. Part 1 examines how five key texts on virtual teamworking contribute to an understanding of how to introduce virtual working to enable concurrent engineering. It develops a structure for comparing and contrasting the texts for this purpose. In Part 2, four general areas of concern are identified from these texts. The authors suggest five other issues, derived from other texts and practical experience important to concurrent engineering involving the supply chain. Part 3 then synthesizes the key elements of a methodology for introducing virtual teaming in a design and manufacture supply chain utilising concurrent engineering.

For two-sided platforms, the utility of users on one side of the platform depends in part on the number of users on the other side of the platform, a phenomenon called indirect network externalities. With the rapid development of two-sided platform and the popularity of platform membership, more and more two-sided platforms have launched joint membership through horizontal cooperation in order to take advantage of indirect network externalities to increase platform profits.

Our study explores the optimal bundling strategy for platform memberships under horizontal cooperation considering indirect network externalities. The main purpose of our study is to obtain the optimal pricing under different strategies (pure component, pure bundling, and mixed bundling) and contrast different strategies under different indirect network externalities.

Results suggest that the platform's optimal pricing for consumers and sellers depends on the indirect network externalities. Interestingly, the higher the indirect network externalities from consumers, the higher the price of the platform charges to sellers, and the platform might even subsidize sellers. Besides, when there are equal proportions of different types of consumers in the market, indirect network externalities that are too high, too low, or heavily lopsided may discourage the platforms from bundling their memberships. When the composition of consumers changes, the optimal strategy will also change. Our results can be employed in practical applications of bundling, which can help the platform increase profits.

There is a gap in the existing literature relating to the implementation of virtual teamworking for engineering collaboration, and concurrent engineering in particular. This paper discusses the development of a methodology focused on guiding companies implementing virtual teamworking for engineering collaboration. The key principle of the methodology is to consider the implementation of virtual teaming as a business project rather than as an IT project. The methodology is derived from an analysis of the key issues identified in the literature, and the empirical findings from an ESRC Innovation funded project on virtual teaming in the automotive supply chain. The methodology identifies 20 important activities around the three key areas of processes, people and technology. The methodology is currently being evaluated with first tier suppliers and SMEs in the automotive sector.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate in the context of the persistent low fertility that contributes to an ageing society, what might be the shifting roles of state and family in caring for children?

This paper aims to address this research question by drawing on the conceptual framework of “social care” (Daly and Lewis), and on data collected through a qualitative study concerning the state's population policies aimed at encouraging childbearing among citizens in Singapore.

Three themes from the interview data relate to the various dimensions of care: first, in terms of care‐as‐responsibility, interviewees consider childbearing a long‐term commitment. In this context, they perceive the current Baby Bonus scheme only as a short‐term benefit, having limited effects. Second, regarding care‐as‐costs, interviewees pointed out that some important social services are not universally affordable. In particular, they expressed a need for more state funding to put education and healthcare within the reach of the general public. Third, in terms of care‐as‐labour, care‐giving for young children by family members continues to be seen as ideal. However, there is a gap between such an ideal and the reality.

These findings suggest a greater financial and regulatory role for the state in childcare provision is increasingly vital.

As it stands, there is a mismatch of people's expectations and available policy initiatives, and this mismatch possibly undermines the success of the government's policy of encouraging childbearing.

This research complements existing studies based on content analysis of policy or statistical analysis of survey data.

The purpose of this study is to explore some quantitative indicators from the social network analysis, observe the variations of these indicators over time and determine whether these indicators fit into the traditional team development stages model or theory. The primary focus is on the perspective of social interaction rather than the suitability of the indicator, i.e. the authors will not determine the optimal indicators nor compare the performance of different indicators. This study aims to propose a quantitative method to identify the development stages of virtual teams.

Two phases were designed in this study. The first phase was a simple study to prove the preliminary ideas and explore which quantitative indicators would be suitable for analysis. In total, 16 undergraduates were randomly assigned to two virtual teams. They were required to complete an information system (IS) project through virtual teamwork and use information and communications technologies (ICTs) to communicate with each other. After proving the preliminary ideas, the authors collected communication data of the 30 virtual teams working on IS projects in the second phase. The total duration of this process was two months.

The findings practically identified three stages, which were found to be consistent with that of the previous qualitative studies. In the initial (inclusion) stage, intensity had an upward trend. In the second (control) stage, centralization had an upward trend. In the final (affection) stage, intensity and density had upward trends and centralization had a downward trend. Both density and centralization also became smooth in this final stage. The conclusion can serve as a basis for further studies in virtual team development.

A successful virtual team will help industries to reduce their costs and increase performance and benefits. The findings will help industries quickly and objectively identify which stage they are at. This quantified approach will provide managers and leaders with a simple, useful way to highlight the needs for managing different aspects of team behavior at each stage of development. After establishing this approach, managers and leaders will be able to make plans to improve existing processes, set priorities, provide suitable principles and guidelines, etc., and eventually improve virtual team performance.

This chapter investigates if and how the introduction of an Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERPS) influences the information characteristics quality, timeliness and complexity. Subsequently we analyze whether the influence of an ERPS adoption on these information characteristics has an impact on the perceived value of information available for performance measurement (PM) purposes. On the basis of the extant literature a structural model is developed which tries to capture the direct and indirect effects of the degree of ERPS adoption on the perceived value of the information available for PM.

The distinctive trend in the quest for environmentally‐friendly wood preservatives and coatings towards water‐based formulations represents a challenge to the manufacturer and the raw material supplier alike to ensure that they offer the in‐use performance equivalent to that of solvent‐borne formulations. Explains that, in addition to the common need for fungicidal and algicidal protection of the dry film, the requirements for biocidal protection of water‐borne products are different from those of solvent‐based formulations in one key respect, the need for in‐can or wet‐state protection. Details the effects that micro‐organisms can produce in and on inadequately protected coatings and the physical and biological measures that can be undertaken to remedy and prevent such effects. Compares the necessary properties of biocides for wet‐state and dry‐film protection, and gives an appraisal of several biocide types.

This paper aims to realize a fully distributed multi-UAV collision detection and avoidance based on deep reinforcement learning (DRL). To deal with the problem of low sample efficiency in DRL and speed up the training. To improve the applicability and reliability of the DRL-based approach in multi-UAV control problems.

In this paper, a fully distributed collision detection and avoidance approach for multi-UAV based on DRL is proposed. A method that integrates human experience into policy training via a human experience-based adviser is proposed. The authors propose a hybrid control method which combines the learning-based policy with traditional model-based control. Extensive experiments including simulations, real flights and comparative experiments are conducted to evaluate the performance of the approach.

A fully distributed multi-UAV collision detection and avoidance method based on DRL is realized. The reward curve shows that the training process when integrating human experience is significantly accelerated and the mean episode reward is higher than the pure DRL method. The experimental results show that the DRL method with human experience integration has a significant improvement than the pure DRL method for multi-UAV collision detection and avoidance. Moreover, the safer flight brought by the hybrid control method has also been validated.

The fully distributed architecture is suitable for large-scale unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms and real applications. The DRL method with human experience integration has significantly accelerated the training compared to the pure DRL method. The proposed hybrid control strategy makes up for the shortcomings of two-dimensional light detection and ranging and other puzzles in applications.