ASAP: The After Salesman Problem

The customer contacts taking place after a sales transaction and the services involved are of increasing importance in contemporary business models. The responsiveness to service requests is a key dimension in service quality and therefore an important succes factor in this business domain. This responsiveness is of course highly dependent on the operational scheduling or dispatching decisions made in the often dynamic service settings. We consider the problem of optimizing responsiveness to service requests arriving in real time. We consider three models and formulations and present computational results on exact solution methods. The research is based on practical practical work done with the largest service organization in The Netherlands.operations research and management science;

Review of \u3cem\u3eMaking it in the Free World : Women in Transition from Prison.\u3c/em\u3e Patricia O\u27Brien. Reviewed by Katherine van Wormer.

Book review of Patricia O\u27Brien, Making it in the Free World : Women in Transition from Prison. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001. $18.95

The Sociology of Alcoholism Counseling: A Social Worker\u27s Perspective

An occupation - alcoholism counseling - strives to gain professional status. Still a field largely dominated by counselors who derive their status more from personal attributes - the fact of being recovering alcoholics - rather than from achievement of impersonally applied standards, chemical dependency counseling is in a state of flux. This sociological analysis examines recent developments in the field. Special emphasis is on roles for social workers

Review of \u3cem\u3eCare Work: The Quest for Security.\u3c/em\u3e Mary Daly (Ed.). Reviewed by Katherine van Wormer.

Book review of Mary Daly (Ed.) Care Work: The Quest for Security. Paperback. Geneva: International Labour Office, 2002. $20 papercover

ANWB automates and improves repair men dispatching

ANWB, the Dutch automobile association, provides assistance, car repair andreplacement services to its nearly 4 million members. ANWB services around 1.3 millionrequests per year in The Netherlands. Historically, the operational planning process ofassigning requests to service men was regionally organized, and human planners solvedthe sometimes large and hectic planning situations in real time. At a national level, some50 planners were required to do the job, and the quality of the planning and operationswere largely unknown. In a large business process reengineering project, ANWBredesigned the planning processes, leveraging state of the art IT and operations researchtechniques. As a result, the 24/7 planning processes are smoothened, can be executed byas few as 14 planners who work at a national level, and the operational planning andperformance have improved. As new competitors entered the market, ANWB has beenable to sustain its extraordinary high customer ratings and market share, while adaptingits proposition to the competitive prices dictated by the market.Economics (Jel: A)

Review of \u3cem\u3eAt Work in the Iron Cage: The Prison as Gendered Organization.\u3c/em\u3e Dana M. Britton. Reviewed by Katherine van Wormer.

Book review of Dana M. Britton, At Work in the Iron Cage: The Prison as Gendered Organization. New York: New York University Press, 2003. $55.00 hardcover,$19.00 papercover

Review of \u3cem\u3eWorking Mothers and the Welfare State: Religion and the Politics of Work-Family Policies in Western Europe and the United States.\u3c/em\u3e Kimberly J. Morgan. Reviewed by Katherine Van Wormer.

Book review of Kimberly J. Morgan. Working Mothers and the Welfare State: Religion and the Politics of Working-Family Policies in Western Europe and the United States. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. $22.95 papercover

Help at Your Fingertips: A Twenty-First Century Response to the Pro Se Phenomenon

In July 2001, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. fired Susan Hudock, an award-winning sales representative suffering from shingles. Angered and frustrated, Ms. Hudock retained an attorney and filed suit against her former employer, alleging that the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to make reasonable accommodations that would enable her to perform certain job-related functions. After incurring over $18,000 in legal fees over two years and with no end in sight, Ms. Hudock decided to take a drastic step: she fired her attorney and proceeded with her case pro se. Despite being warned by her former attorney that she would never survive summary judgment, Ms. Hudock did just that, largely through the aid of legal resources she found on the Internet. When her trial finally began in June 2005, Ms. Hudock rose from the sole chair at the plaintiffs table and began her opening statement by telling the jury, I have to tell you, I\u27m terrified. Nevertheless, she forged ahead with her case, struggling with evidentiary procedures, witness examination, and general trial strategy; her well-represented adversary had no such difficulties. Although the jury ultimately found for Aventis, Ms. Hudock remains undeterred. She plans to represent herself again on appeal. Ms. Hudock\u27s experience has become increasingly common in recent years, with both state and federal courts seeing a marked increase in pro se civil litigation. In the federal district courts, non-prisoner pro se litigants filed over twenty thousand cases in a recent one-year period; the federal appellate courts saw a twenty percent increase in pro se appeals between 1993 and 2004. Though the trend shows no signs of abating, not all members of the legal community have welcomed it. Both scholarly and practical debates have centered on the appropriate balance between an individual\u27s right to represent himself and the need for judicial efficiency

Lecithin addition to starter pig diets with and without added fat and whey

A total of 316 crossbred weanling pigs were used in two studies to evaluate the effect of the addition of edible-grade, unbleached soy lecithin on growth in starter pig diets with and without added fat and/or dried whey. Addition of fat to a corn-soybean meal diet improved (P\u3c.05) feed efficiency but addition of lecithin did not affect performance. When lecithin and fat were added in combination, average daily gain was less (P\u3c.05) than for diets without added fat. This may be due to a high level of undigestible fat having a limiting effect on intake and consequently decreasing gains. A low level of lecithin (1.5%) in diets without whey gave approximately the same response as a 4% fat diet without thus making lecithin a possible fat substitute should, it be economically feasible.; Swine Day, Manhattan, KS, November 15, 198