No abstract

Queues at emergency rooms (ER) are prioritized based on the patient's sickness level. As a consequence, patients with low priority frequently have to wait excessively long. At Mercy Hospital, we began to study means by which such time would be reduced, without putting in jeopardy the life of critical patients. As an initial effort, we studied the flow of patients at the Emergency Department (ED) and decided to model it with and without a fast track lane. A simulation study revealed that indeed a fast track lane reduces by almost 25% the time in the system for patients with low priority without negatively affecting the times of patients with higher priority.

Simulationmodeling has been widely used to study many aspects of FMS design, planing and control. Yet, simulation modeling still offers other capabilities that are proven to be effective for the on-line control of FMS. An example of it is the training of neural nets off-line, so that it will later control the decision making process when the FMS is in operation.if the neural net runs out of knowledge, it turns back to a simulation model to learn new situations. In this paper, we review the various ways in which on-line knowledge-based simulation for FMS has been approached. This paper represents the early stages of on-going research efforts at Florida International University.

On-time delivery of the paper is critical in the newspaper industry since it is directly related to the quality of service; therefore, it enhances or damages sales. This study was focused on determining the means to meet required delivery times, and in identifying ways to improve it, so that there is a lower probability of failure. A simulation model was built to model the paper printing, packaging, and distribution processes. The results yielded a press schedule and warehouse assignments that provided a 13% improvement on delivery time. This improvement results in a 97% on time delivery of the paper.