Simulation constructs for computer-integrated just-in-time production systems: an object oriented approach

Just-in-time (JIT) has been widely applied to manufacturing companies all over the world because of its efficient control of system inventory levels. Since continual improvement is the central concept of the JIT philosophy, frequent changes in some areas of a JIT system (such as production procedure, plant layout, and quality control) are expected. To successfully and economically implement JIT philosophy, requires simulation and modelling tools that are easy to use and sufficiently flexible to model real-world systems. The object-oriented methodology provides reusability and modularity that best fulfil these needs. However, there is no reported research that models a JIT system based on the object-oriented methodology. Thus, this paper applies the object-oriented methodology of Coad and Yourdon to the modelling of a general JIT system. The JIT model is then translated to C++code to demonstrate the main characteristics of the object-oriented methodology: inheritance, data abstraction, information hiding and dynamic binding.