1891 – Sakichi Toyoda
In 1891 Sakichi Toyoda received his first patent for a loom. He was 24 years old.
In 1902 Sakichi Toyoda invented a loom that automatically stopped when there was a problem with the threads. This lead to Toyota’s practice of designing equipment to stop automatically to call attention to a problem that arises in the production system.
Toyoda’s journey to 1926 and beyond is an amazing story – further reading here.
Sakichi Toyoda (1867 – 1930) 1926 – Toyoda Automatic Loom Works
The engineering manufacturing company established by Sakichi Toyoda from the invention of the automatic power loom in 1924 which was produced in 1926.
Jidoka (autonomous automation):
-The Toyoda Type G was the first automatic loom
-Automatically stopped the cutting of weft and warp (vertical) yarn
-Supplied weft yarn without any loss of speed during high-speed operation
-Had a shuttle-change guide
-Had weft break auto-stop, warp break auto-stop
-Had devices to provide automation, protection, health and safety
Jidoka results in Quality:
Toyoda developed an unwavering conviction that a product should never be sold unless it has been carefully manufactured and fully tested in the commercial trial, with completely satisfactory results.
The 5 Whys:
Toyoda developed the concept.
Toyoda Automatic Loom, type G, made in 1926 “There is nothing that can’t be done. If you can’t make something, it’s because you haven’t tried hard enough.”
Sakichi Toyoda1937 – Toyota Motor Corporation
The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937, as a spinoff from his father’s company Toyota Industries, to create automobiles. The Model A1 passenger car prototype was completed in May 1935, in less than two years (from September 1933).
Just-in-Time:
Kiichiro studied Henry Ford’s conveyor system and adapted it to produce small quantities of items only when they were needed by the next process. This laid the groundwork for just-in-time production. In fact, Kiichiro Toyoda coined the term.
Kiichiro Toyoda (1894 – 1952) “The thieves may be able to follow the design plans and produce a loom. But we are modifying and improving our looms every day. They do not have the expertise gained from the failures it took to produce the original. We need not be concerned. We need only continue as always, making our improvements.”
Kiichiro Toyoda1938 – Honsha plant built by Eiji Toyoda
In 1938, Kiichiro Toyoda asked his cousin Eiji Toyoda to oversee construction of a factory in the town of Koromo, later renamed Toyota City. Known as the Honsha (“headquarters”) plant, to this day it is considered the “mother factory” for Toyota Motor production facilities worldwide. By the early 1950s Toyota had produced around 2,500 automobiles, whereas Ford manufactured 8,000 a day. Due to this, Eiji decided to adopt American automobile mass production methods but with a qualitative twist.
Kaizen:
Toyoda applied a manufacturing culture based on concepts like ‘kaizen’, a commitment to continuous improvements suggested by the workers themselves, and just-in-time production, a tireless effort to eliminate waste.
“One of the features of the Japanese workers is that they use their brains as well as their hands,” he said in an interview with the author Masaaki Imai for the 1986 book “Kaizen.”
“Our workers provide 1.5 million suggestions a year, and 95 percent of them are put to practical use. There is an almost tangible concern for improvement in the air at Toyota.”
Eiji Toyoda (1913 – 2013) “A person’s life is an accumulation of time – just one hour is equivalent to a person’s life. Employees provide their precious hours of life to the company, so we have to use it effectively, otherwise, we are wasting their life.”
Eiji Toyoda1940-1970 – The Toyota Production System
The Toyota Production System evolved over many years, from the 1940s through the 1970s and beyond. Taiichi Ohno was not the only contributor to the management philosophy, but he is the most well known.
1950s – Taiichi Ohno
Taiichi Ohno joined the Toyoda Spinning and Weaving works in 1932. In 1943 Taiichi Ohno worked as a production engineer and met the challenge to boost their productivity to compete with the American automotive industry. In the 1950s Eiji Toyoda collaborated with Taiichi Ohno to develop core concepts of what later became known as the ‘Toyota Way’.
Taiichi Ohno is seen as ‘The Father’ of TPS but he wasn’t the only person credited with developing the TPS but he was responsible for turning it into an integrated framework.
Ohno notably focused on eliminating the 3 types of ‘Waste‘: Muda, Muri, Mura.
And, after visiting American supermarkets, Ohno was inspired by how to replenish stock through filling the shelves back up when required. Toyota would now only produce and replace the parts needed at the next step in the process. This ‘self-service’ model used visual signals called ‘Kanban’ so it was obvious when it was time to replenish stock. This was a ‘Pull System‘ and allowed Toyota to order supplies ‘Just-in-Time’.
Taiichi Ohno (1912 – 1990) 
The elimination of Waste led to the implementation of the ‘Just-in-Time’ inventory management. “Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month’s manual should be out of date.”
Taiichi Ohno1971 – Hitoshi Yamada mentored by Taiichi Ohno
Toyota Production System Manual:
Hitoshi Yamada, created a TPS manual that was approved by Ohno in May of 1990: the year he sadly passed away.
Kaizen:
Within his TPS manual, Yamada also outlined a four-step process to change people’s mindset: Personal Kaizen, Flow Kaizen, Process Kaizen, and Machine Kaizen.
Waste:
Yamada condensed Ohno’s original 7 wastes into 3 wastes.
Hitoshi Yamada (right) and Taiichi Ohno (left). 
The comprehensive TPS manual written by Hitoshi Yamada in 1990 that includes a letter of endorsement by Ohno himself. This manual includes the scientific methods for fostering the right mindset which is the foundation for implementing TPS. (Article extract by Jun Nakamuro). “If you do not react to problems you will never accomplish great results. Unless you persistently try to identify hidden Muda you will not realize what you are capable of achieving.”
Hitoshi Yamada1973 – “Toyota Production System” in writing
Toyota’s Education Department creates the first 200 page TPS manual in Japanese. The foreword is drafted by Taiichi Ohno. Authors include F. Cho, K. Sugimori, S. Uchikawa, etc. Edited by Isao Kato. This is really the first time that Toyota’s system is called the “Toyota Production System” in writing.
1978 – The Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production
The book by Taiichi Ohno; ghost written by Setsuo Mito.
When Ohno was retired from Toyota in 1978 and began work on The Toyota Production System, Toyota executives worried that he would reveal the secrets of Toyota’s specific techniques. In fact, Ohno wrote an amazing set of brief essays on the thought process and spirit behind the leap from mass production (where Ford wound up at the Rouge) to truly lean production that could accommodate wide variety in continuous flow.In reading Ohno, you can’t actually learn anything about precisely what to do on Monday morning. Yet you can learn everything about the spirit of lean thinking and the “just do it” attitude that permitted Ohno to surmount insurmountable obstacles and to introduce lean thinking in a craft-mass environment after World War II in Japan.
Original Japanese version 1978
English translation 1988 by Productivity Press
Other books by Taiichi Ohno:
Workplace Management (1984)
Just-in-Time for Today and Tomorrow (1988)1981 – A Study of the Toyota Production System
Shigeo Shingo writes “A Study of the Toyota Production System from an Industrial Engineering Viewpoint”. Published1981 (in Japanese), 1989 (in English).
At Toyota around 1955, he helped train manufacturing engineers on implementing the efficiency processes with his P-course, that influenced Toyota’s later creation of kaizen.
Using SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Dies), Shingo provided guidance around internal vs external work, for reducing changeover (set-up) time to a machine.
Poka-yoke (mistake proofing):
Shingo is credited with formalising the concept and adopting the term as part of the Toyota Production System.
Shigeo Shingo (1909 – 1990) 
“Time is merely a shadow of motion. Supervisors frequently put pressure on plant workers to speed up their work, to get jobs done more quickly. Yet simply working faster—without improving the motions that take up the time—will not speed things up in the final analysis. Time is merely a shadow of motion, and no matter how much we may complain about shadows, nothing will happen unless we deal with the substance—motion—that throws the shadow.”
Shigeo Shingo1988 – ‘Lean’ coined in Triumph of the Lean Production System
In his 1988 paper Triumph of the Lean Production System, published in Sloan Management Review, John Krafcik first coined the term ‘lean’ in reference to a production system and that was later used by his thesis advisor James Womack in the title of his now famous book about Toyota- The Machine that Changed the World. The Story of Lean Production.
1990 – The Machine That Changed the World
In the book co-written by James P. Womack, the word “lean” is first used in a book to describe how Japanese auto manufacturer Toyota modified the mass production automobile process into the first true “lean” method of production.
Note: It’s accepted that the terms ‘Toyota Production System (TPS)’ and ‘Lean’ are used interchangeably.1992 – Toyota describes TPS for the first time
Toyota Motor Corporation published an ‘official’ description of TPS for the first time in 1992; this booklet was revised in 1998.
In the foreword it was said: ″The TPS is a framework for conserving resources by eliminating waste. People who participate in the system learn to identify expenditures of material, effort and time that do not generate value for customers and furthermore we have, avoid a ’how-to’ approach. The booklet is not a manual. Rather it is an overview of the concepts, that underlie our production system. It is a reminder that lasting gains in productivity and quality are possible whenever and wherever management and employees are united in a commitment to positive change″.
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