Eiji Toyoda – The Bard Of The Assembly Line
September 20, 2013 2 Comments
Eiji Toyoda died,earlier this week, at the age of 100, almost 30 years after retiring from active management of Toyota Motors.
Like Alfred Sloan and Henry Ford before him, Toyoda was an engineer whose vision dominated the company in its formative years and beyond. He transformed Toyota into a global powerhouse with management and manufacturing processes that transcended the auto industry.
Where would we be without kanban, kaizen, muda, and keiretsu, as well as acronyms like JIT (just in time), TQC (total quality control), ZD (zero defects), and TPS (Toyota Production System)?
Although Taiichi Ohno is known as the father of the Toyota Production System, Toyoda probably deserves more credit for its development. He encouraged his team to learn from W Edwards Deming, to study the Ford production system, and to use data to refine manufacturing processes. Read more of this post
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