Management Hall of Fame: Leading Management Gurus

Eiji Toyoda
Toyota Motors - A Global Engineering Success  (1913- Present)

Key Work

• He joined his cousin's automobile production company and  was responsible for recruiting the best research engineers and organizing production.
• He becomes president of Toyota.
• Toyoda visits Ford plant to learn more about the US motor production system.
• Toyota Car "Crown" model become successful in Japan but not in United States.
• He learned that in order to compete price advantage is not enough so he instead focused on efficiency and quality.
• He employed the inventor Taichi Ohno to develop a new production system "Toyota production System". Through quality and reliability, Toyoda took on the great U.S. automobile manufacturers and emerged as the winner.  He successfully launches Corolla in United States to become number one imported car in United States.
• The final result is a global success, from the Corolla to Lexus.

Taiichi Ohno designed the Toyota Production System with the following basic elements are 

• Waste control (overproduction, transporting, unnecessary stock on hand, producing defective goods, waiting (idle/nonproductive time), processing itself,  unnecessary motion)
• Just-in-time (JIT). That is supplying to each process what it needs when it needs it and in the quantity that it needs.
• Automation with a human touch - Automation with error control
• Quality:. quality must flow from production process and not inspection
• Production Leveling: rearrange the production plan and schedule to level out Peaks and troughs thus minimizing waste
• "Signboard":  a stock identification and-control system

 

Books & References:

• Toyoda, Eiji. Toyota: Fifty Years in Motion . Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1987.
• Taiichi Ohno's Workplace Management
• Productivity Press, 1982.
• Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. Cambridge, MA: Productivity Press, 1988.
• Ohno, Taiichi, with Setsuo Mito. Just-in-Time: Making It Happen: Unleashing the Power of Continuous Improvement.
  Cambridge, MA: Productivity Press, 1988.

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