The Toyota Production System

The history of Toyota goes far back into the 20th century. Sakichi Toyoda was the founder of the
Toyota Motors Company and already gained a lot of knowledge about producing. Sakichi started
with inventing manual looms for his family that worked in the cotton sector. He continued with
improving the looms and started Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. Among his inventions was a
special mechanism to automatically stop a loom whenever a thread broke, an invention that
evolved into a broader system that became one of the pillars of the Toyota Production System
called, Jidoka (automation with a human touch) (Liker,J ,2003), which will be discussed in
chapter three. Sakichi became aware that looms would become yesterday’s technology and cars
would become today’s technology so he sold the patent rights of the loom and used the money to
start the Toyota Motor Company. The Japanese government sponsored Sakichi, which gave him
the opportunity to start a stabile company. His son Kiichiro became the president of the company,
because Sakichi wanted to give him also a chance to “change the world”. Production System,
Just-In-Time was Kiichiro Toyoda’s contribution and his vision was at the root of the Kanban
system, which also will be discussed in chapter three.
The name is changed from Toyoda to Toyota because it made pronunciation easier and because
the name Toyota is luckier according to the Japanese language and culture. The first motor was
produced in 1934 and followed by the first car in 1936. By 1936, just after the first successful
Toyoda vehicles were produced, Japan demanded that any automakers selling in the country
needed to have a majority of stockholders from Japan, along with all officers, and stopped nearly
all imports. In the World War II, Toyota produced trucks and army vehicles, however after the
surrender of Japan Toyota was given permission by the United States military to start up
peacetime production. After World War II, Toyota was kept busy making trucks, but by 1947 it
began making the Model SA, called the Toyopet, a name to stay with Toyota for decades, albeit
attached to different cars. The Toyopet was not powerful and had a low top speed – 55 mph from
a 27 horsepower engine – but it was designed to be cheap, and to handle the rough roads of post-
war Japan (Toyoland, 2009).
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