First International Conference on Six Sigma

Theme: Optimising Your Bottom Line Savings Through Six Sigma

16 - 17 December 2004

Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

Organised by

CALEDONIAN BUSINESS SCHOOL
GLASGOW CALDEDONIAN UNIVERSITY
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND, United Kingdom


Six Sigma is a business strategy that seeks to identify and eliminate
causes of errors or defects or failures in business processes by focusing
on outputs that are critical to customers. Six Sigma as a business
improvement strategy has been well recognised as an imperative for
achieving and sustaining operations and service excellence. Although Six
Sigma has made a huge impact on industrial world, the academic fraternity
lags behind in its understanding of this powerful strategy. This
conference is aimed to have both academic and industrial community to
envisage what the future holds for Six Sigma as a business improvement
strategy. Specific objectives of this conference include:

  Create an awareness of the prowess of Six Sigma in problem-solving
and enhancing competitiveness of an organisation
  Build a network of individuals, corporations and institutions
willing to take a pioneering role in promoting Six Sigma
  Build a quality and cost reduction mindset for Business Executives
and Senior managers through Six Sigma
  Share well proven results of Six Sigma through presentation of
case studies, workshops and tutorials
  Build a network of industries and academic institutions which are
committed to developing Six Sigma research and training programs
  Bring in the Best Practice Management of Six Sigma by sharing
experiences with internationally renowned practitioners and academics

By attending this conference and workshop, delegates would be able to
obtain the answers to the following key questions:

+ Do you need to improve business process efficiency?
+ What is the status of Six Sigma in organisations today?
+ What factors are essential for the successful deployment of Six
Sigma?
+ What challenges are to be encountered during the development of
this strategy and how to overcome them?
+ How to get started on the Six Sigma Journey?
+ How to optimise the bottom-line impact using the Six Sigma
strategy?
+ How to ensure the successful selection of projects?
+ What is my role as an Executive Leader in Six Sigma programme?
+ What is the role of academicians within Six Sigma curriculum?

This conference is not only intended for those who are in the journey of
achieving and sustaining significant financial savings  to the bottom-line
using Six Sigma, but also equally applicable to those organisations who
would like to embark on this journey towards Best-in-Class management
practice. The keynote speakers and workshop leaders of this international
event are pioneers and leading practitioners of both Six Sigma and Lean
Production strategies.

With an exciting theme for the upcoming first ICLS, we would like to
invite papers for the following sub-themes:

+ Six Sigma for Manufacturing Processes
+ Six Sigma for Service Processes
+ Six Sigma for Transactional Processes
+ Six Sigma for SMEs
+ Role of Leadership in Six Sigma
+ Application of Six Sigma tools/techniques for problem solving
+ Six Sigma and its link to other Initiatives (such as IS0
9001:2000, Lean production, Statistical Thinking)
+ Role of Leadership for Six Sigma
+ Design for Six Sigma
+ Six Sigma in Supply Chain
+ Role of Six Sigma for Academicians

Who should attend the conference?

= Senior Managers
= Managing Directors and CEOs
= Business Leaders/Executives
= Six Sigma Professionals
= Quality Management Professionals
= Quality and Six Sigma practitioners
= Six Sigma Research Students
= Academics engaged in Quality Management, Six Sigma or Lean Research

Call for Papers

Deadline for submission of abstract: 24 May 2004
Notification of acceptance of abstract: 21 June 2004
Deadline for submission of full paper: 2 August 2004
Notification of acceptance of full paper: 31 August 2004
Latest date for submission of conference paper (with final changes):
21 September 2004

Paper Submission

The basis for acceptance of papers is that they are relevant and
contribute to the current literature of Six Sigma, Quality Engineering,
Quality Management and Lean Production strategies. Authors are invited to
submit an abstract of 500 words or less to the scientific co-ordinators.
All conference abstracts will be double blind reviewed by the members of a
Technical Committee to ensure their academic rigour, practical
significance to industrial arena and value to existing literature. Each
abstract should have a separate title page that includes title of the
paper, author name/s, affiliation/s, full contact addresses including fax,
phone and e-mail. Your abstract must include 5 to 8 key words that capture
the contents of your paper. For multiple authors, please indicate clearly
to whom correspondence should be made. Authors must register for and
attend the conference if their submission is accepted. We encourage
electronic mail submission in either Microsoft Word or pdf format. Once
the abstract is accepted, the authors are encouraged to submit the full
paper.

Papers should be typed on standard A4 pages using 12-point Times New Roman
typeface or equivalent in MS Word. Manuscripts should be limited to 2500
words in length, single-spaced with double space between paragraphs.
Authors¡¦ names, affiliations and e-mail address should be provided after
the title. The title must be bold-faced and centred in upper/lower case.
Figures and Tables should be sized to scale and labeled with a caption
centred under the Figure or Table. It is preferable to have the figures
and tables included in the text but if this is not possible, please place
all Figures and Tables at the end of the text (after References) and
ensure that a place-mark is inserted in the body of the text (e.g.: ¡§
Insert Figure 1 here¡¨ or ¡§Insert Table 1 here¡¨ ). It is strongly advised
to use Harvard style of referencing throughout the paper.

Publication

All accepted papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings. The
organising committee and technical committee members will encourage
selected authors to submit their papers for review to the International
Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage.

Conference Fees
One-day conference (without workshop) ¡V (300.00 + VAT (GBP) on or before
5th October 2004, and 350.00 + VAT (GBP) after 5th October 2004)
One-day workshop ¡V (500.00 + VAT (GBP) on or before 5th October 2004 and
550 + VAT (GBP) after 5th October 2004)
One-day conference + one-day workshop ¡V (700.00 + VAT (GBP) on or before
5th October 2004 and 800.00 + VAT (GBP) after 5th October 2004)
Note: Entry to all sessions is subject to space availability and sessions
will be filled on a first come first served basis.

The conference fee will include:

= A CD-ROM version of the proceedings
= Refreshment breaks and Lunch
= Sightseeing tour

Please direct all queries to Conference Chairman:

Dr Jiju Antony
Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage
Division of Management
Caledonian Business School
Glasgow Caledonian University
Glasgow, G4 0BA
Scotland, United Kingdom
Tel: 0141 331 8475
Fax: 0141 331 8496
E-mail: [log in to unmask]


Members of the Conference Programme Committee:

Prof. Ashok Kumar, Seidman School of Business, GVSU, Michigan, USA

Prof. Hefin Rowlands, Head of Research and Enterprise, Newport, UK

Prof. Rick L Edgeman, Robert H Smith School of Business, University of
Maryland, USA

Dr Alejandro Balbontin, Vice President, J.P. Morgan Chase, UK

Prof. Min Xie, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Prof. Kailash C Kapur, University of Washington, USA

Professor Sung Hyun Park, Seoul National University, Korea

Dr Mats Deleryd, Director of Quality Assurance and Performance Management,
Bombardier Transportation, Sweden

Prof. Gunasekaran, University of Massachusetts, USA

Prof. S.K.Neogy, Head, SQC and OR Unit, ISI, New Delhi, India

Dr Lynne Hare, Kraft Foods, Research, USA

Prof. Ken Black, University of Houston Clear lake, USA

Mr Larry Smith, Heritage Quality Coach, Ford Motor Company, USA

Professor Kwang-Jae Kim, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea

Christopher Seow, University of East London Business School, UK

Lisa D. Lopez, Six Sigma Champion, Commonwealth Health Corporation, USA

Dr Matthew Hu, Master Black Belt, Troy, Michigan, USA

Prof. Mahadevan, IIM, Bangalore, India

Dr Fugee Tsung, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

Dr Pavel Blecharz, VSB-TU, Faculty of Economics, Czech Republic

Dr Phil Rowe, Master Black Belt, Six Sigma Consultant, Bourton Group, UK
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