Did you know ?
LEGEND
Taiichi Ohno ,
Founding Father of the Toyota Production System
As supply chain seems to quickly be veering from JIT ( Just-in-Time ) to JIC ( Just-in-Case ), we thought it a good time to honour the founding father of the Toyota Production System ( TPS ), the inspiration for Lean manufacturing , and pay homage to some of his principles .
Taiichi Ohno ( 1912 – 1990 ) was a graduate of the Nagoya Technical High School in Japan . In 1932 , after graduation , Taiichi Ohno joined the Toyoda family ' s Toyoda Spinning and Weaving works which later sold to a British company named the Platt Brothers . After selling the business , the Toyoda family invested the money in the manufacturing of motor cars , Toyota .
Ohno started at the Toyota motor company in 1943 where he worked as a shop-floor supervisor in the engine manufacturing shop . Gradually , he rose through the ranks to become an executive .
Under pressure from competing American automakers Taiichi Ohno knew the company had to find better , more efficient ways of working and looked to eradicate inefficiencies and eliminate waste within the companies production processes , thus creating the core of TPS .
“ All we are doing is looking at the time line , from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash . And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value adding wastes .
Did you know ?
Toyota Motor Corporation was founded in 1937 by a man called Kiichiro Toyoda , and it was named after him . The reason why it is called " Toyota " and not " Toyoda " is that people thought it sounded better and it also meant that the name could be written in Japanese with eight strokes of the pen . In Japan , since the olden days , people have thought that the number eight was lucky and meant that things would go well in the future . So the name " Toyota " was chosen in the hope that not only the company but also Japan would prosper .
18 July 2021