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                     Call for Papers

            Joint Conference of IMCM'06 and PETO'06
                June 22-23, Hamburg/Germany


     International Mass Customization Meeting (IMCM'06):
       "Customer Interaction and Customer Integration"

                             &

 International Conference on Economic, Technical and Organizational
       Aspects of Product Configuration Systems (PETO'06):
    "How to Build and Implement Product Configuration Systems"

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Conference Website  http://www.manufacturing.de/calls/imcm06+peto06


December 10, 2005   Abstract due (800 words)
December 19, 2005   Notification of authors
March 1, 2006       Final paper submission
March 31, 2006      Final authors' notification


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We are pleased to announce and invite you to participate in the Joint
Conference of IMCM'06 and PETO'06, which will be held at
Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Germany from 22-23 June, 2006.

This international conference is co-organized by the Hamburg University

of Technology (TUHH), Technical University of Denmark and University
Klagenfurt.

Both prestigious conferences cooperate in 2006 for the first time in
order
to drive forward the research on mass customization and to close the
gap
between theory and practice. Mass Customization is a business strategy
that aims at producing goods and services for individual customers'
needs,
while achieving economics of scale in operations and manufacturing
related
tasks. Practitioners and researchers working in this field are invited
to submit their papers, in which they present original works and new
advances in mass customization. This can refer to theoretical concepts,

information and managerial tools as well as best practices.

***** Theme and Objectives *****

IMCM'06
The general objective of IMCM'06 is to discuss the new advances
achieved in
the fields of customer interaction and integration, which are of
particular
importance in order to ensure a successful implementation of mass
customization. In fact, the scope of customer interaction and
integration
goes beyond the fulfillment of individual customer requirements within
a
given mass customization framework. Indeed, customer input should be
exploited in order to support critical decisions concerning the design
and
adaptation of future frameworks. Thus the goal-oriented use of customer

knowledge makes it possible for companies to continuously align their
capabilities with changing customer requirements. The achievement of
these
goals calls for a joint effort of various fields including Marketing,
Psychology, Engineering, Logistics (especially if customers should be
involved in the manufacturing processes), and Information Technology.
Consequently, IMCM'06 is seeking for best practices and original
research
papers in these areas, which address the problem of tight customer
interaction and integration in mass customization.

PETO'06
Research related to product configuration systems has gained an
increasing
importance with the emergence of the mass customization paradigm. The
benefits of such software systems for the automation of order
fulfillment
are wellknown. However, building and implementing them still remain a
challenging task. In fact, not only technological but also economical
and
Organizational aspects are of high relevance in order for companies to
put
Successfully these systems into practice. Toward this aim, many
important
factors should be taken into account. For instance, product assortments

should be evaluated according to their readiness for configuration.
The result of such assessment may be the redesign of product
architectures
so as to enable the creation of variety through modularity. Business
processes should also be analyzed and reengineered, especially those
that
will be supported by the configuration system. The modeling techniques,

which come into play after product and process redesign aim to
adequately
represent the components and to ascertain the optimal logic enabling
the inference of consistent product variants. Furthermore, it is
important
that the organization is adapted in a suitable manner so as to reap the

Benefits of these software systems. It is within the scope of these
fields
that PETO'06 looks for original papers from academia and industry in
order
to drive forward the research on product configuration systems from
different perspectives.

***** Topics *****

Due to the complex and interdisciplinary disposition of these
conferences,
we expect contributions from Business Administration & Economics,
Engineering, Computer Science, Psychology, Natural Sciences, as well as
cross-disciplinary contributions from practitioners. Ongoing or
completed
research as well as papers with a main focus on practice and case
studies
are welcome.

We welcome abstracts/papers addressing any topic within the broad area
of
Mass Customization, e.g.:
*       Adaptive supply chains
*       Custom order control in MC manufacturing
*       Customer and supplier integration
*       Customer needs' elicitation
*       Customer-Relationship-Management
*       Customization of logistic processes
*       Design and implementation of product configuration systems
*       Design of a product architecture based on platforms and modules
*       Design of sales and engineering processes
*       Implementation of configurators in the practice
*       Modeling a product assortment
*       Open Innovation
*       Organizational effects of configurators
*       Personalization and advisory systems
*       Placement of the decoupling point
*       Product family management and modular architectures
*       Production and Logistic systems complexity
*       Production planning and control
*       Role of logistic service provider in customer integration
*       Selection of standard configuration software for specific
      configuration tasks
*       Short and long term economic impacts of product configuration
      systems
*       Variety management and costs of variety


***** Submission of Abstracts *****

Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished research
results/best
practices for consideration in IMCM'06 and PETO'06. Abstracts for
papers
should describe the nature and relevance of the problems, the research
methodology, and work-in-progress or final research results. Abstracts
must
Not exceed 800 words and should be in MS.Word and PDF format. The font
type
for body text should be 'Arial' size 11 while the title size 12 with
'BOLD UPPER CASE'. Abstracts for Papers should include three to four
keywords and all authors' contact information. The official conference
language is English.

Please submit the abstracts to the following Email address:
IMCM06@manufacturing.de


***** Chairs *****

Prof. Dr. Thorsten Blecker
Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH)
Department of Business Logistics and General Management (5-11)
Schwarzenbergstr. 95
21073 Hamburg, Germany
Email: blecker@ieee.org

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Friedrich
University Klagenfurt
Department of Computer Science and Manufacturing
Universitaetsstr. 65 - 67
9020 Klagenfurt, Austria
Email: gerhard.friedrich@uni-klu.ac.at

Ass. Prof. Dr. Kasper Edwards
Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management
Technical University of Denmark
Building 423
2800 Lyngby, Denmark
Email: edwards@ipl.dtu.dk

Associate Prof. Dr. Lars Hvam
Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management
Technical University of Denmark
Building 423
2800 Lyngby, Denmark
Email: lhv@ipl.dtu.dk