A cyclic chromatographic process based on the method of column switching was used to separate a three-component carbohydrate mixture. It permits continuous introduction of the feed and is designed to produce higher product concentration compared to a normal elution cyclic process. A fixed-bed model incorporating axial dispersion and a linear driving force for mass transfer was successfully used to estimate optimum operating conditions (switch times and fluid-flow rates). Its experimental setup can be easily constructed by modifying the apparatus of a simulated countercurrent process since both systems comprise segmented columns equipped with on-off valves for fluid-flow control. This allows one to conduct either multicomponent separation based on elution operation or binary separation based on countercurrent operation using essentially the same set of experimental apparatus with minor modification.