SMEs; Virtual research and development (R&D) teams and new product development: A literature review

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are indeed the engines of global economic growth. Their continued growth is a major subject for the economy and employment of any country. Towards that end, virtual research and development (R&D) could be a viable option to sustain and ease the operations of SMEs. However, literature shows there has not been a great deal of research into the diverse characteristic of virtual R&D teams in SMEs. This article provides a comprehensive literature review on different aspects of virtual R&D teams collected from the reputed publications. The purpose of the literature review is to provide an outline on the structure and dynamics of R&D collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the rationale and relevance of virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R&D team for SMEs and new product development (NPD) has been examined. It concludes with identifying the gaps and feebleness in the existing literature and calls for future research in this area. It is argued to form of virtual R&D team deserves consideration at top level management for venturing into the new product development within SMEs

Virtual R&D teams in small and medium enterprises: a literature review

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the driving engine behind economic growth. While SMEs play a critical role in generating employment and supporting trade, they face numerous challenges, the prominent among them are the need to respond to fasting time-to-market, low-cost and rapid solutions to complex organizational problems. Towards that end, research and development (R & D) aspect deserves particular attention to promote and facilitate the operations of SMEs. Virtual R & D team could be a viable option. However, literature shows that virtual R & D teaming in SMEs is still at its infancy. This article provides a comprehensive literature review on different aspects of virtual R & D teams collected from the reputed publications. The purpose of the state-of-the-art literature review is to provide an overview on the structure and dynamics of R & D collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the foundation and importance of virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R & D team and SMEs has been examined. It concludes with the identification of the gaps in the existing literature's and calls for future research. It is argued that setting-up an infrastructure for virtual R & D team in SMEs still requires a large amount of engineering efforts and deserves consideration at top level management

Web-based CBR (case-based reasoning) as a tool with the application to tooling selection

Over the past few years, manufacturing companies have had to deal with an increasing demand for feature-rich products at low costs. The pressures exerted on their existing manufacturing processes have lead manufacturers to investigate internet-based solutions, in order to cope with growing competition. The decentralisation phenomenon also came up as a reason to implement networked-application, which has been the starting point for internet/intranet–based systems. Today, the availability of powerful and low cost 3D tools, database backend systems, along with web-based technologies, provides interesting opportunities to the manufacturing community, with solutions directly implementable at the core of their businesses and organisations. In this paper a web-based engineering approach is presented to developing a design support system using case-based reasoning (CBR) technology for helping in the decision-making process when choosing cutting tools. The system aims to provide on-line intelligent support for determining the most suitable configuration for turning operations, based on initial parameters and requirements for the cutting operation. The system also features a user-driven 3D turning simulator which allows testing the chosen insert for several turning operations. The system aims to be a useful e-manufacturing tool being able to quickly and responsively provide tooling data in a highly interactive way

Virtual R&D teams and SMEs growth: A comparative study between Iranian and Malaysian SMEs

This paper explores potential advantages of using virtual teams for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a comprehensive review on various aspects of virtual teams. Based on the standing of the pertinent literature, attempt has been made to study the aspects by online survey method in Iran and Malaysia. In both countries, SMEs play an important role in their economies, employments, and capacity building. Virtual R&D team can be one of the means to increase SMEs efficiency and competitiveness in their local as well as global markets. In this context, surveys have been conducted to evaluate the effects of virtuality to the growth of SMEs. The study addresses some differences between two countries in engaging virtual research and development (R&D) teams in their SMEs. It is observed that there is a significant difference between the SMEs turnover that employed virtual team and that did not employ the virtual team. The way for further studies and recommend improvements are proposed.Virtual R&D team, small and medium enterprises, survey, developing countries.

Cooperation platform for distributed manufacturing

The aim of the paper is to analyse contemporary trends in distributed manufacturing (DM) research and to present a concept to develop and test some task allocation, planning and scheduling algorithms for DM network organisations. Some concepts to identify key factor criteria and reasoning policies and rules for production/manufacturing decision support system are also undertaken. And finally, an aim is to draw a proposal for a development of a prototype decision support system with necessary communication and knowledge oriented modules to be implemented in an example of dynamic, DM and logistics network structure, particularly for very popular dynamic cluster forms in Poland. The developed concept of the organization of a multi-entity DM network will enable business-effective use of the system, supporting manufacturing decision making, consulting and offering information services in the control centre (the so-called Competence Centre) by constructing virtual reality and access to services in a distributed network of cloud computing type. Integration of the whole system into one information system will enable analysis and network resource optimization of manufacturing and logistics processes, new analytical functions, reduction of delays in the manufacturing system, management of changes and risks, and visualization of the current state of the DM system

SMEs; Virtual research and development (R&D) teams and new product development: A literature review

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are indeed the engines of global economic growth. Their continued growth is a major subject for the economy and employment of any country. Towards that end, virtual research and development (R&D) could be a viable option to sustain and ease the operations of SMEs. However, literature shows there has not been a great deal of research into the diverse characteristic of virtual R&D teams in SMEs. This article provides a comprehensive literature review on different aspects of virtual R&D teams collected from the reputed publications. The purpose of the literature review is to provide an outline on the structure and dynamics of R&D collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the rationale and relevance of virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R&D team for SMEs and new product development (NPD) has been examined. It concludes with identifying the gaps and feebleness in the existing literature and calls for future research in this area. It is argued to form of virtual R&D team deserves consideration at top level management for venturing into the new product development within SMEs.Virtual teams, small and medium enterprises, new product development, R&D

Virtual R & D teams in small and medium enterprises: A literature review

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the driving engine behind economic growth. While SMEs play a critical role in generating employment and supporting trade, they face numerous challenges, the prominent among them are the need to respond to fasting time-to-market, low-cost and rapid solutions to complex organizational problems. Towards that end, research and development (R & D) aspect deserves particular attention to promote and facilitate the operations of SMEs. Virtual R & D team could be a viable option. However, literature shows that virtual R & D teaming in SMEs is still at its infancy. This article provides a comprehensive literature review on different aspects of virtual R & D teams collected from the reputed publications. The purpose of the state-of-the-art literature review is to provide an overview on the structure and dynamics of R & D collaboration in SMEs. Specifying the foundation and importance of virtual teams, the relationship between virtual R & D team and SMEs has been examined. It concludes with the identification of the gaps in the existing literature's and calls for future research. It is argued that setting-up an infrastructure for virtual R & D team in SMEs still requires a large amount of engineering efforts and deserves consideration at top level management.Virtual teams, small and medium enterprises, literature review

Methodology for Designing Decision Support Systems for Visualising and Mitigating Supply Chain Cyber Risk from IoT Technologies

This paper proposes a methodology for designing decision support systems for visualising and mitigating the Internet of Things cyber risks. Digital technologies present new cyber risk in the supply chain which are often not visible to companies participating in the supply chains. This study investigates how the Internet of Things cyber risks can be visualised and mitigated in the process of designing business and supply chain strategies. The emerging DSS methodology present new findings on how digital technologies affect business and supply chain systems. Through epistemological analysis, the article derives with a decision support system for visualising supply chain cyber risk from Internet of Things digital technologies. Such methods do not exist at present and this represents the first attempt to devise a decision support system that would enable practitioners to develop a step by step process for visualising, assessing and mitigating the emerging cyber risk from IoT technologies on shared infrastructure in legacy supply chain systems