Modeling Supply Chain Integration in an Integrated Project Delivery System

The supply chain relationship is an essential factor in the performance of Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). The IPD system encourages the early involvement of key participants in the design stage. Consequently, this early involvement requires a new configuration of the supply chain relationship in the IPD system. However, there is a lack of knowledge in understanding the performance of the supply chain relationship in the IPD system. To fill this gap, we applied a simulation model, Virtual Design Team (VDT), to explore the dynamics of the supply chain integration in terms of project organization and project delivery process in design. This study presents a conceptual and qualitative analysis of the VDT model applied in two IPD projects. The results explored different behaviors of integration at inter-organizational and project levels throughout project organization, contractual and technological mechanisms of coordination. The project organization characteristics influence the performance of the construction supply chain.

Improving Virtual Design Team Performance Through Use of a Collaborative Sketching Application

As virtual teamwork in engineering becomes more central to the daily design activities of organizations around the world, it is increasingly important for team members to be able to easily and effectively share their visual ideas with remote teammates. However, sharing visual representations of ideas among virtual teammates is generally difficult and commonly hampered by various factors, making the process time-consuming and non-intuitive. In laboratory experiments and a case study, involving students from six different universities across the U.S. working as teams to build unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the authors quantify how a collaborative sketching application (CSA) provides a significant benefit to design engineering activities for virtual teams. From the experiments and the case study, it was observed that such a tool improved users' understanding of each other's ideas when working in a virtual setting, improved the perceived equality of teammate contribution, and decreased the level of frustration experienced when working remotely.

Workflow Complexities of Fit Criteria on Strategy Applications and Structure Adaptations

In studying the correlation between structure–strategy and workflow process, empirical research has shown that knowledge flow has an influence on professional team workflow performance. Using multiple sources of case study evidence, we propose a contingent model of a criteria fit in which the effect of structure on strategies is efficiency of Knowledge Applicability (KA) and effectiveness of Knowledge Adaptability (KA). A case study analysis of building permit approval processing by the Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD) and the various planning agencies in Ghana finds strong support for the model explaining that structure is the measurement attribute determining the efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge flow. A framework of four types of KA is outlined. These show that the viability of organisations is contingent on adaptations of efficient structure and applications of effective strategies. With an emphasis on two organisational environmental variables (uncertainty and equivocality) and structural configuration, we demonstrated the impact of formalisation and centralisation on knowledge flow and workflow process using Virtual Design Team Computational Organisational Theory (VDTCOT).

Study on Web-Based Collaborative Design for the Vehicle Clutch Release Bearings

Clutch release bearings are an important vehicle powertrain components. Web-based collaborative design automotive clutch release bearings, making the regional formation of enterprises dynamic virtual design team, through a combination of scattered in various technological advantage, the talent to play all engineers, technicians can not subject to geographical restrictions, by computer supported collaborative design (CSCD), is a collaborative model of human and computer technology convergence of new technologies. By numerical calculation and the C# language on the separation of the axial load bearing capacity of the design process is developed. It is established on separate static analysis of the proposed bearing model.

A Spatial Environment for Design Dialogue

This chapter offers a spatial concept of the way virtual design team work. It is concerned with two problems that face creative teams today: (1) that the design process is carried out through a diverse range of digital media, which are not or only poorly integrated and (2) that the digital tools used by virtual teams are not designed for virtual team work but used in a very pragmatic way, which often limits the creative efficiency. The chapter argues that space has a structure and that we can use that structure to navigate and place information in space and thereby create a design space with the virtuality and creativity of an open ‘reflection-in-action.’ Further, it argues that we have to develop concepts of team setting, team solving, substituted process paths, and supplemented process paths to expand our understanding of these issues. This will be demonstrated through two constructions for virtual teams: virtual platform and topos.