My collagues are talking a lot about Lean these days. I thought it would be interesting to simulate one of their examples using JavaFX.
Here is a picture:
What’s cool about this then?
First, it gave me a deeper understanding of a how queue length affects cycle time. With this simulator, you can vary the parameters to control queue size and processing time. Just pull the slides.
Secondly, I knocked up this in hours and being my second JavaFX project, I consider it very fast.
There are always advocates for languages that speak loudly about how fast they write code. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be one of those.
I used almost the same number of hours with a spreadsheet to check whether the simulation was correct.
Speaking of spreadsheets, they are great tools for understanding data.
The first point shows how JavaFX can be the same for understanding the interaction of parameters for a dynamic flow.
So the bottom line is, nothing beats a visual model and you can knock it up with JavaFX, being quick as a brick. (Did I just say that?)
Now, go and see for yourself: http://www.crisp.se/leanmachine
Way cool to be able to easily download and try it out! Lean sort of. 😉
Cool app! A bit confusing interface, I played around with it for a while and I’m still not 100% sure about what is going on. Impressive app though, for just a few hours of hacking. And the whole idea of making lean simulations in this way is inspiring :o)