Please note: This notice is for papers to be submitted directly to the 6th International Conference on LSS in Higher Education. Please do not submit conference papers to the International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management.
Theme: The Trinity of Operational Excellence in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs): Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma
Date: 14th and 15th November 2022
Venue: TBC
Overview
The International Conference on Lean Six Sigma (LSS) for Higher Education was founded by Professor Jiju Antony in 2013. The conference has attracted over 300 academics from over 30 countries since then. The sixth International Conference on Lean Six Sigma (LSS) for Higher Education will explore the current status of the Trinity of Operational Excellence (OPEX) in the Higher Education sector. OPEX is a powerful operational strategy that increases process performance, resulting in reduced waste across the HE sectors, improved efficiency of business processes resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction and improved bottom line results in hard cash savings. The objective of LSS is to transform the HEIs from separate reactive operations, which are generally functionally oriented, into cross-functional process-focused organizations to meet the demands of 21st century education. Although a number of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been utilising Lean principles, research has shown that very few HEIs have been integrating the best practices of Lean and Six Sigma for developing and sustaining a culture of continuous improvement.
HEIs have been a cornerstone in educating society’s leaders, an incubator for advanced technologies and an accelerator for economic development. The situation within the HEIs today is very similar to that of manufacturing and service organisations facing fierce competition, limited budget availability, government funding slashed and students adopting a consumer approach to their learning. Research has explicitly shown that only some problems can be tackled using the Lean approach and hence more complex problems with unknown solutions, both Six Sigma and LSS can be extremely beneficial. This conference aims to highlight that the Trinity of Operational Excellence (i.e., Lean, Six Sigma and LSS) have an immense and critical role to play in creating a customer-centric approach for higher education to better fulfil the educational mission.
Conference Objectives
The specific objectives of the conference are as follows:
- Build a network of individuals from HEIs willing to take a pioneering role in promoting OPEX methodologies
- Build an efficiency mindset for Senior Administrators in the HEIs to Champion OPEX methodologies
- Share case studies of OPEX methodologies in the HEIs
- Share experiences on continuous improvement (CI) or OPEX journeys from practitioners across HEIs in different countries
- Critically assess the current status of OPEX applications in the HEIs. This may include the challenges, success factors, failure factors and leadership models for the successful deployment of CI or OPEX methodologies
Conference Topics
With an exciting theme for the upcoming conference we invite paper submissions on relevant topics, including, but not limited to:
Theme 1: Kaizen for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 2: Lean for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 3: Six Sigma for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 4: Lean Six Sigma for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 5: TQM Practices in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 6: Quality Management Practices (e.g.: ISO 9001) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 7: Quality Tools and Techniques in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 8: Customers in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 9: Service Quality in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
Theme 10: Miscellaneous topics (e.g.: Online Teaching Effectiveness, Impact of Covid-19 on Teaching, etc.)
Who should attend this conference?
- Vice Chancellors, Deans & Head of Departments of HEIs and other public sector organisations
- Senior Managers in HEIs and other public sector organisations
- Academics and Researchers engaged in Lean/Six Sigma/Lean Six Sigma
- Directors of Support/Administrative sections of Faculty/Schools
- Six Sigma Professionals
- Lean Professionals/practitioners
- Quality Management Professionals
- Six Sigma practitioners /consultants
- Continuous Improvement professionals in the Public Sector domain
- OPEX professionals in the Public Sector environment
Paper submission
The basis for acceptance of papers is that they are relevant and make a contribution to the current literature of Six Sigma, Lean Thinking, Lean Six Sigma, Quality Assurance, Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, and Total Quality Management. Authors are invited to submit an extended abstract of 300 words to the conference chairs. All conference abstracts will be double-blind reviewed by members of a Scientific Committee to ensure their academic rigor, practical significance to industrial arena and value to existing literature. Each abstract should have a separate title page that includes the title of the paper, author name/s, affiliation/s and full contact details including address, fax, phone and e-mail. Your abstract must include up to 5 key words that capture the contents of the 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 Microsoft Word. When an abstract is accepted authors are encouraged to submit the full paper. Please note that we strongly suggest all authors to follow structured abstract. Please click the link below for guidance in preparing a structured abstract.
https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/how-to/authoring-editing-reviewing/write-article-abstract
Full Papers should be typed on standard A4 pages using 12-point Times New Roman typeface or equivalent in MS Word. Final Manuscripts should be limited to 3000 words in length, double spaced with double space between paragraphs. Authors’ names, affiliations and e-mail address should be provided after the title. The title should be bold-faced and centered in upper/lower case. Figures and Tables should be sized to scale and labelled with a caption centered 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.
Here are some examples:
For books:
Phadke, M.S. (1989), Quality Engineering Using Robust Design, Prentice-Hall International, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
For book chapters:
Bessley, M. and Wilson, P. (1999), Marketing for the Production Manager, in Levicki (Ed.), Taking the Blinkers off Managers, Broom Reim, London, pp. 29-33.
For journal articles:
Montgomery, D.C. (1992), The Use of Statistical Process Control and Design of Experiments in product and process improvement, IIE Transactions, Vol.24, No.5, pp. 4-17.
All accepted papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings. The organizing committee and technical committee members will encourage selected authors to submit their papers for review to the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma /Quality in Education/ International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management.
Important Dates
Deadline for submission of abstract: 20th May 2022
Notification of acceptance of abstract: 24th June 2022
Deadline for submission of full paper: 22nd July 2022
Notification of acceptance of full paper: 26th August 2022
Latest date for submission of conference paper (with final changes): 19th September 2022
Sponsorship Opportunities
- Becoming a sponsor of the Sixth International Conference on LSS for Higher Education will reinforce your company’s position as a leading player in Operational Excellence strategies and provide you with access to high quality audiences; including academics and business leaders, as well as a host of Lean and Six Sigma professionals, and a new generation of PhD students and research fellows.
- Please email any enquiries related to the conference, paper abstracts and paper submissions to Professor Jiju Antony (Conference Chair and Founder): [email protected] or any of the conference co-chairs below.
Conference Chair:
Dr Jiju Antony, Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and LSS Master Black Belt
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
E-mail: [email protected]
Conference Co-chairs:
Dr Chad Laux
Associate Professor of Computer and Information Technology and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Purdue University
Indiana, USA
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr Maher Maalouf
Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr Raja Jayaraman
Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
E-mail: [email protected]
Dr Guilherme Luz Tortorella
Senior Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering
The University of Melbourne, Australia
E-mail: [email protected]