Title: An object-oriented approach to model a just-in-time production system

Authors: J. Lyu, A. Gunasekaran

Addresses: Department of Industrial Management Science, National Cheng Kung, University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC. Department of Management, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA 02747-2300, USA

Abstract: To produce modular and re-usable simulation models, previous studies have found out that an object oriented approach seems to be more appropriate. Various paradigms have been proposed and their results are promising. This paper illustrates how object oriented programming concept can be applied to implement a simulation model of JIT system. Another objective of this research is to implement the simulation model by visual interactive approach. The interactive interface, built in this research allows the managers to change their decisions and justify the consequence very quickly. Moreover, the program during execution can display its results in an animated manner so that users can observe and understand the process during simulation. Some illustrated operations process will be demonstrated in the paper. Computational results obtained using the JIT simulator to examine effects of different number of Kanbans or arrival time distributions are also reported. Later, this paper uses object-oriented approach to implement an animated simulation model in order to analyse the design and implementation factors of a JIT system. The results clearly show that this approach is feasible and deserves more efforts for further research.

Keywords: simulation; JIT; object-oriented programming.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.1999.000204

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 1999 Vol.12 No.2/3/4/5, pp.199-205

Published online: 13 Jul 2003 *

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