Depending on the techniques employed, the due date assignment, release, and sequencing procedures in job shop scheduling may depend on one another. This research investigates the effects of these interactions with a simulation model of a dynamic five-machine job shop in which early shipments are prohibited. Performance of the system is measured primarily in terms of the total cost (work-in-process cost, finished goods holding cost, and late penalty) incurred by the shop, but a number of non-cost performance measures are also reported. The results support existence of a three-way interaction between the due date, release, and sequencing procedures as well as interaction between shop utilization and procedure combination. Statistical tests are used to identify those rules that perform best both overall and in combination with other ~1~s .Subject Areas: Scheduling and Simulation.

Effective measurement and analysis of service quality are an essential first step in its improvement. This paper discusses the development of neural network models for this purpose. A valid neural network model for service quality is initially developed. Customer data from a SERVQUAL survey at an auto‐dealership network in The Netherlands provide the basis for model development. Different definitions of service quality measurement are modelled using the neural network approach. The perception‐minus‐expectation model of service quality was found not to be as accurate as the perception‐only model in predicting service quality. While this is consistent with the literature, this study also shows that the more intuitively appealing but mathematically less convenient expectation‐minus‐perception model out‐performs all the other service quality measurement models. The study also provides an analytical basis for the importance of expectation in the measurement of service quality. However, the study demonstrates the need for further study before neural network models may be effectively used for sensitivity analyses involving specific dimensions of service quality.

Objective: Emergency-procedure laboratories are not a standardized part of the curriculum for emergency medicine residency programs. The authors evaluated the efficacy of an emergency-procedure laboratory to teach medical students and residents the performance of tube thoracostomy.Methods: A prospective repeated-measures study of tube thoracostomy placement training was performed in an animal-laboratory setting. Participants were six first-postgraduate-year emergency medicine residents and six fourth-year medical students. Each participant was given a written pretest on tube thoracostomies followed by lectures on tube thoracostomy, venous cutdown, peritoneal lavage, and surgical airway. The procedure laboratory, using an anesthetized canine model (20-25 kg), was then conducted. Tube thoracostomies were timed from skin incision to passage of the tube into the thoracic cavity with subsequent tube fogging. Four attempts per participant were documented. Eighteen days later, an identical procedure laboratory was conducted for the same students including a written posttest identical to the pretest. Results:The written test scores improved for every participant (p < 0.0001). Mean times for procedures completion improved from 121 sec to 39 sec (p = O< .001) during the first session and improved from 58 sec to 28 sec (p = 0.005) during the second session. Retention of skills was indicated by significant shortening of the time to completion from the first attempt of the first session to that of the second session (121 sec to 58 sec, p = 0.002). Conclusions:This procedure laboratory, which emphasized skill repetition, led to improvement in procedural speed and retention of tube thoracostomy skills over time. This approach to teaching clinical procedures should be considered for emergency medicine residency programs and for continuing medical education courses that emphasize acquisition of clinical procedural skills.