John Black and Associates
  • About Us
    • JBA Team
    • History
    • Blog
    • Press
  • Our Services
    • Healthcare Transformation
    • Tours
    • 3P Lean Design
    • Mistake Proofing Webinar
  • Clients
    • Results
  • Books
    • Articles
  • Contact Us

Founding Fathers of Lean: Kiichiro Toyoda and Ohno

5/12/2017

 
Picture
When the Toyota Group (replacing the Toyoda family’s d with a t) set up an automobile-manufacturing operation in the 1930s, Sakichi’s son Kiichiro headed the new venture. He traveled to the United States to study Henry Ford’s system in operation, and he returned with a strong grasp of Ford’s conveyor system and an even stronger desire to adapt that system to the small volumes of the Japanese market (Toyota Manufacturing Kentucky 2015). Soon thereafter, the first Toyota system of manufacturing was born. To say that Toyota copied Ford is not accurate—Toyota learned from Ford, especially from Ford’s mistakes. This point demonstrates the driving power of the Toyota system: continuous improvement.
           
Taiichi Ohno, Toyota’s chief process engineer, added many of the tools and detailed production processes to Kiichiro Toyoda’s vision, and he understood that what would soon become TPS could be applied more broadly than just to manufacturing. In his book Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production (1988, xv), he states:

"The Toyota production system, however, is not just a production system. I am confident it will reveal its strength as a management system adapted to today’s era of global markets and high level computerized information systems."
​Ohno is best remembered for the implementation of the just-in-time strategy in the TPS. He went on to publish three books and mentor young managers at the Toyota Group.
 
Together, Ohno and Toyoda ushered the Toyota Group into an era of world-class production. 
Picture
Ohno with his mentee Koshiki Iwata, who later became one of my mentors.

Comments are closed.
    Picture

    About the author
    ​

    John Black, President and CEO of JBA, has implemented Lean improvements for four decades, first with the Boeing Company and later as a leading consultant in the healthcare industry.


      Get monthly blog updates in your inbox

    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    Human Potential
    Innovation
    Lean History
    Lean Leaders
    Organizational Design
    Patient Focus
    Process
    Vietnam
    World-class
    Zero Defects


    Archives

    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016

    RSS Feed

©2015 John Black and Associates