In this paper, several dispatching rules are studied in hybrid flow shop environment using simulation in order to minimize the mean flow time as well as standard deviation. Hybrid flow shops are productive systems with several stages. Every stage is composed of a pool of machines. This kind of productive configuration has been largely studied in recent years because it appears in many real production systems. Several heuristic rules have been adapted to the hybrid flow shop with sequence dependent setup times. The influence of shop status and job characteristics over the performance of the heuristic rules is evaluated. The analysis of the results highlights some interesting aspects about the effect of setup times and productive system characteristics on the dispatching rules performance.