- Apologies for multiple copies

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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 
Conference email:    [log in to unmask]

**** Early registration deadline: 14 April 2006 ****

Important note: 
due to the FIFA world cup Germany 2006, it is very important (and also
urgent!) that you make the hotel reservation within the next few days at one
of the conference hotels.


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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 well-known. 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. 


***** Program *****

The detailed program will be published soon.


***** 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: [log in to unmask] 

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Friedrich
University Klagenfurt
Department of Computer Science and Manufacturing
Universitaetsstr. 65 - 67
9020 Klagenfurt, Austria
Email: [log in to unmask] 

Ass. Prof. Dr. Kasper Edwards
Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management
Technical University of Denmark
Building 423
2800 Lyngby, Denmark
Email: [log in to unmask] 

Associate Prof. Dr. Lars Hvam
Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management
Technical University of Denmark
Building 423
2800 Lyngby, Denmark
Email: [log in to unmask]