INFORMS Open Forum

The Quality Control and Reliability Engineering (QCRE) division of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) is sponsoring a student paper competition as part of the IISE Annual Conference & Expo, May 18-24, 2024, in Montreal, Canada. The purpose of this competition is to honor outstanding papers in the field of quality and/or reliability engineering research and practice. Awards will be presented at the QCRE town hall meeting during IISE Annual Conference & Expo. The winners will be acknowledged in the QCRE newsletter and the website. The winner and finalist papers are eligible to be recommended to the INFORMS Journal of Data Science (IJDS).

Eligibility Criteria

Both undergraduate and graduate students are invited to submit papers. The following conditions apply to all submissions for this competition:

1. The paper topic must fit the QCRE themes.

2. The applicant must be a full-time student at the time of submission.

3. The student must be the first author and an IISE QCRE member.

4. The paper must present original research results and cannot be accepted for publication elsewhere at the time of submission (it can, however, be submitted and/or under review for possible publication at the time of submission for this competition).

5. The paper must not have won or been considered for an award in another competition.

6. Previous finalists who wish to compete again should submit an entirely different paper. Past winners are not eligible for the competition.

Important Notes

1. Papers submitted for this competition will NOT be published in the ISERC proceedings.

2. IISE and the QCRE division do NOT own the copyrights of the papers submitted for this competition. However, the papers must be available for the recommendation to IJDS.

Formatting and Submission Guidelines

1. Entrants must submit (1) a blinded and unblinded version of the paper and (2) a formal signed

   statement from the student and the advisor (attached to the end of this document), affirming that the majority of the original results presented in the paper are due to the student's efforts rather than the advisor or other collaborators involved in the work.

2. All submissions should be in electronic format (.PDF files ONLY) to both coordinators (in a single email), Dr. Dan Li (dli4@clemson.edu) and Dr. Syed Hasib Akhter Faruqui (shf006@shsu.edu) by 02/09/2024 (11:59 PM local time of the lead author). Late or incomplete submissions will be ineligible for the competition. All submitted papers will be reviewed and ranked by the reviewer committee, and the finalists will be announced in March 2024.

3. Papers must be within 8 pages (the page limit does not include references but includes appendices; format with 1-inch margins, single column, single-spaced, 12-point font, in Times New Roman) and must begin with an abstract of 250 words maximum. The submitted paper must follow the format or will be returned without review.

Competition Coordinators

Dan Li (dli4@clemson.edu), Clemson University

Syed Hasib Akhter Faruqui (shf006@shsu.edu), Sam Houston State University