Special Tracks

Specal tracks 

• Special track: Productivity and Quality of Healthcare Services
• Special track: Productivity and Quality in Working Life and Sustainable Organisations
• Special track: Participative Design of Product and Production Innovations
• Productivity and Quality in Higher Education
• Special track: Open Innovation
• Special track: Supply Chain Performance Management

Productivity and Quality of Healthcare Services

In co-operation with HEMA (Healthcare Engineering, Management and Architecture) Research Group at Helsinki University of Technology, we are organizing a special track on " Productivity and Quality of Healthcare Services", which will focus how healthcare service provision can be improved byusing industrial management approaches. The topics for the special track include, but are not limited to:

• Use of industrial management approaches to increase productivity and quality in healthcare
• Operation room management
• Operating theatre scheduling
• Simulation and optimization
• Behavioral modeling and incentives
• IT tools for increasing productivity
• e-health applications
• Measuring effectiveness of healthcare services
• Patient process management
• Application of quality management approaches and tools
• Organizational arrangements to increase productivity and quality in healthcare
• Governance in healthcare service production

Productivity and Quality of Working Life and Sustainable Organizations

We are organizing a special track on "Productivity and Quality of working life and sustainable organizations". In this special track, we like to emphasize the importance of sustainable and regenerative work in achieving high productivity in knowledge-intensive  work. We also believe that productivity in organizations can be designed and increased in such manners that they simultaneously support employee's well-being. The topics for the session include, but are not limited to:

• What is the role of human capital in productive knowledge work?
• What are the elements of sustainable and regenerative knowledge-intensive organizations?
• What are the conditions of human and social regeneration in productive organizations?
• How to measure productivity and well-being in knowledge-based organizations?
• What kind of management approaches, tools and methods contribute to both productivity and quality of working life?
• How different types of conditions and cultural settings are related to high productivity and quality of working life?
• Which individual capabilities and competences are needed in different type of organizatinal settings?
• How institutional context support productivity and quality of working life?
• How to measure productivity and well-being in new forms of work?
• What are hindrances and enablers of productive knowledge work?
• What isn the role of physical, virtual and social spaces in productivity and well-being?
• How multi-tasking affect productive knowledge work?
• How to facilitate productivity and well-being in knowledge work?
• How work-life balance is related to productivity?
• What are the psycho-social working conditions for productive knowledge work?
• How to enhance productivity and well-being in distributes and mobile work systems?

Participate Design of Product and Production Innovations

We are organizing a special track on "Participative Design of Products and Production Innovations". In this special track, we like to emphasize the improtance of wide-base research and development (R&D) carried out by various participative and involving procedures.  We also believe that mobilizing users of products and personnel or organizations to collaborate with design experts and management is one key factor when more competitive product portfolio and production processes are tried to achieve. The topics for the session include, but are not limited to user-centred design (UCD) of products and services and Participative R&D of production processes.

A) User-centred design (UCD) of products and services, utilizing

• user study and usabikity study and other usability engineering methods
• requirements and needs analysis
• ergonomics in design for usability and safety
• UCS of information and communication technology and other new technologies
• methods aiming at guaranteeing quakity in use of HCI (Human-computer interaction)
• implementation and introduction of new services and products
• design for older users
• user participation processes
• user-centred re-designing
• participative approach to computer system and software design
• UCD of work stations
• methods for creativity
• user design groups, decision making and design
• focus groups

B) Participative R&D of production processes, utilizing

• tools for successful change design and management
• tools for assisting work restructuring
• company-wide participation
• employee involvement
• involving personnel in design
• organizational participation
• work, job and task design principles
• design for well-being work
• implementation strategy
• SHEQ management systems (Safety, Health, Environment, Quality)
• safety and risk management systems 
• safety and risk management using computer- and internet-based system
• participative risk analysis
• occupational risk prevention
• macro-ergonomic and socio-technical design of work systems
• participation in strategy processes
• managing innovation

 Productivity and Quality in Higher Education

In cooperation with the European eXcellence Project, we are organizing a special track on "Productivity and Quality in Higher Education", which will focus on how Higher Education (HE) can be improved by using industrial engineering and management approaches. The topics for the special track include, but re not limited to:

• Use of industrial management approaches to increase productivity and quality in HE
• eLearning
• eLearning applications
• ICT tools for increasing productivity and quality in HE
• Measuring effectiveness of services in HE
• Applications of quality management approaches and tools
• Organizational aspects in improving productivity and quality in HE
• Governance iN HE
• Productivity and quality as part of Bologna Process
• Best practices

 Open Innovation

In cooperation with the Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research (CKIR), Helsinki School of Economics, we are organizing a special track on "Open Innovation". In this special track we like to emphasize the importance of utilization of all innovations in business sense when developing product creation mechanisms in organizations. Open innovation is re-vitalizing this tradition, as it aims at enabling networking between different actors in industry, reserach and consumer communities to empower industrial and social innovation. Companies are moving from the contemporary model for innovation and open innovation. We need to have versatile research in this more and more important area of business development. 

 Supply Chain Performance Management

We are organizing a special track on "Supply Chain Performance Management". Following the general theme of the conference, the emphasis in this track will be on productivity and quality in supply chains, including such issues as concepts, tools and systems for creating and managing high-performance supply chains, enabling technologies, analytical models and tools, performance measurements in supply chain management, etc. Increasing complexity and uncertainty pose challenges on inter-firm relationships and performance that are also of interest in this special track on supply chain management. This special track aims to stimulate discussion and new ideas on future directions in supply chain management as an academic discipline and management practice. Conceptual papers and empirical studies are invited to the track from academic as well as practitioners interested in supply chain management tools.