The continuous chromatographic separation of multicomponent mixtures using a pseudo-simulated moving bed illustrated by Japan Organo (JO) technology has been studied. The behavior and performance of a system operating with this technology have been described by an algorithm that simulates its operating cycle: chromatographic fixed-bed process in step I and simulated moving bed process in step 2. To design a four-section JO system some concepts were presented and two strategies were developed to set the operating conditions of the system in the case of mixtures with linear adsorption isotherms for each species. The influence of operating parameters in separating the mixtures was addressed and improvements in both productivity and eluent consumption have been achieved. The four-section JO system has been applied to a set of ternary mixtures with different degrees of separation difficulty to analyze its performance. A novel extension of the JO system with five sections has been designed for quaternary separations and high-purity species can be collected for a case of "moderately difficult" linear separation. (c) 2006 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 52: 3794-3812, 2006.