We report on the use of discrete event simulation modeling to support process improvements at an orthopedic outpatient clinic. The clinic was effective in treating patients, but waiting time and congestion in the clinic created patient dissatisfaction and staff morale issues. The modeling helped to identify improvement alternatives including optimized staffing levels, better patient scheduling, and an emphasis on staff arriving promptly. Quantitative results from the modeling provided motivation to implement the improvements. Statistical analysis of data taken before and after the implementation indicate that waiting time measures were significantly improved and overall patient time in the clinic was reduced.

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Please cite this article in press as: Weinhardt, J.M., et al., How analytic reasoning style and global thinking relate to understanding stocks and flows. J. Operations Manage. (2015), http://dx. a b s t r a c tUnderstanding stock-flow relationships is fundamental to the management of operational systems. In their most basic form, stock-flow systems consist of resources that accumulate and flows that change their level. Managing stock-flow systems is an indispensable part of operations management, including supply chain, inventory, and capacity planning. Previous studies have shown that most people, even experts and well-educated individuals, make persistent errors when inferring the behavior of accumulation (i.e., stock) over time. However, little is known about what individual characteristics make a decision maker better or worse at understanding stock-flows. In this paper, we report the results of investigating the relationship between analytical-intuitive thinking and global-local processing on performance in a simple stock-flow problem.We find that individuals with an analytical thinking style, rather than an intuitive one, perform significantly better on a stock-flow problem; whereas individuals with a global, rather than a local, thinking style do not necessarily perform better. However, even individuals who exhibit analytical thinking have a poor understanding of stock-flow problems. Analytical thinking may be related to understanding stock and flows, but more work is needed to better understand what cognitive abilities are required to solve these problems.

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