Toyota Motor Corp. said in a statement that Eiji Toyoda, the man responsible for growing Toyota into a global powerhouse, died today. Toyoda had just turned 100 years old last week. The cause of death was listed as heart failure. Toyoda was a cousin of Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of Japan’s largest car company and he took over management of the family business in 1967 and served as president until 1982, when Toyota Motor Co. and Toyota Sales were merged and he became chairman of the combined corporation, holding that position until 1992.
In 1950 U.S. occupation forces in Japan sent Toyoda to Dearborn to learn about building trucks from Ford. The Toyota company had switched production almost entirely to making trucks for the Imperial Japanese Army starting in the late 1930s. The U.S. Army was considering having Toyota build them trucks to use in the Korean conflict. Once in Dearborn Toyoda realized that Ford was not that far ahead of Toyota in terms of technology but until then Toyota Motor had been building vehicles in small batches. Toyoda pushed his company to learn from Ford, GM and other automakers about mass production of automobiles.
Perhaps Toyoda’s greatest talent was learning from others. He was such an adept student that by the time Toyoda retired, those other automakers were using Toyota as a benchmark of manufacturing excellence. Creating that reputation was only one of Toyoda’s accomplishments, which also included building at least 10 new factories, expanding exports to dozens of countries, instituting kanban, just in time production methods, and kaizen, or continuous improvement. It’s said that he got the idea for kanban from observing the way American grocery stores used suppliers to keep their shelves stocked. Following the examples of Henry Ford and Isaac Singer, he also advocated establishing assembly facilities overseas to build cars where Toyota sold them, first with the NUMMI partnership in California with General Motors and later with independent factories in the U.S., Canada, England and France. He was also a pioneer in introducing computers to the production process. The reputation for quality and reliability that Toyota products have today can be traced back to a 1960 decision by Eiji Toyoda to embrace “total quality control” including the ideas of Dr. Demming.
Eiji Toyota was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, Dearborn, Michigan, in 1994, the second Japanese automaker to be inducted, after Soichiro Honda
Once Toyota was well established as global vendor of mass market cars, Toyoda also spearheaded the development of Toyota’s luxury Lexus brand to take on companies like BMW and Mercedes-Benz. He was inducted into the U.S. Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan in 1994, the second Japanese auto executive so honored, after Soichiro Honda.
“As a member of the automobile industry, this is indeed a great moment for me,” he said in a statement upon his induction. “Ever since Toyota’s establishment in 1937, I have been involved in this wonderful business, and as long as my engine keeps running, I intend to give back as much as I can for the industry’s further development.”
Toyoda was born on Sept. 12, 1913, near Nagoya, the second son of Heikichi and Nao. He grew up within his father’s textile mill, according to his autobiography, Toyota: Fifty Years in Motion. A member of a prestigious family, he gained admission to the University of Tokyo where he received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1936. Following graduation, he joined the family business, Toyoda Automatic Loom Works Ltd., working for his uncle, Sakichi Toyoda, who had invented a loom that automatically shut itself off when a piece of fabric broke. Jidoka, the use of machines that shut down when problems are detected, would later be a hallmark of Toyota manufacturing. In 1937, Sakichi’s son, Kiichiro, who had been heading Toyoda Automatic Loom Works automotive division, founded Toyota Motor bringing his younger cousin, then in his 20s, into the new enterprise.
Eiji Toyoda started out on the factory floor before working his way up in the family business to head production planning. He became a director of the company in 1945. Given a great deal of autonomy, he had a major role in establishing the company headquarters in Toyota City, Aichi prefecture.
A private family funeral service will be held, Toyota Motor Corp. said in a statement. He had three sons and a daughter with his late wife, Kazuko. He is survived by his eldest son, Kanshiro, according to Toyota’s statement. Akio Toyoda, the grandson of Kiichiro Toyoda, and Eiji Toyoda’s first cousin, twice removed, currently heads the automobile company.
Thanks to William Chapin, director of the Automotive Hall of Fame, for giving TTAC access to their display honoring inductee Eiji Toyoda on very short notice. The Chapins, like the Toyodas, are an automotive family. Bill’s father Roy Jr. ran American Motors and his grandfather Roy Sr. ran Hudson.
-
- Eiji Toyota was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame, Dearborn, Michigan, in 1997
大先生。
そうね
彼は私の父と同じ年に生まれた。
それは楽しかった
私はあなたのお父さんは、それが100に近くなると思います。
申し訳ありませんが、間違った印象。父は2005年に死亡した。
偶然は単に面白そうだった。
Rest in Peace, Toyoda-san. The automobile is vastly improved as a result of your efforts!
RIP. I’m not even going to attempt Japanese.
“Perhaps Toyoda’s greatest talent was learning from others.”
Indeed.
Recognizing that other people may know better than oneself, and eagerly learning from their experiences, it is the mark of truly great men.
+1
Exactly. It takes something that’s rare: humility. It’s also wicked smart. You learn more from your failures than your successes, but it’s far less painful to learn from others’ failures than your own.
He was a titan that will be recognized for his organizational genius by all future generations. He recognized the essential advantage of the techniques advocated by W.E. Deming, sent by the occupational forces to streamline and re-start Japanese industrial production. A confluence of circumstances and need fine-tuned to world-wide dominance in their field. Hard to believe they’ve come from the Toyopet to the Camry to the LF-A, in just my lifetime.
An amazing man who has left an amazing legacy.
There isn’t a business student in America that hasn’t sat through a lecture on ‘Just-In-Time’. It is a concept that transcended beyond the auto industry into all forms of manufacturing and production. RIP.
Just a small correction. Toyota’s first foreign factory was in Brazil. No problem you don’t know that though cause all they made there was a 50s or 60s version of the Land Cruiser for 40 or 50 yrs.
They made the FJ40 there until 2001 or so. Sure wish we still got it up until then.
Had to take the MR2 for a brief cruise in honor of Toyoda-san after reading this. 安らかに眠れ
It was this very man who obsessed over ridding factories of waste. It was this man who’s obsession with engineering led him to a Ford factory in 1950 to observe operations there. It was this man who fathered kaizen. It was this man who spearheaded The Toyota Production System after learning from the genius Deming, and as a result, completely changed manufacturing, not just automobiles. It was this man, in 1983, who challenged Toyota’s engineers and executives to develop a luxury car that could not only challenge the world’s best, but beat them.
Toyota owes so much of its success to him. RIP Mr. Toyoda, and thank you.
It says something that others are more open to using the best of American technology and improving upon it, where we as a country are more resistant to any change. It is always smart to be open to ideas of others. We should be more open to ideas of others. Mr. Toyoda was a wise man and he lived a long full life. What better thing can you say about a man than that.
I have to wonder what this will mean for Toyota. It wasn’t long after Mr. Honda passed that Honda started it’s slow decent into mediocrity.
Fortunately for Toyota (or atleast Lexus), Akio Toyoda’s at the helm of Toyota.
Unlike the previous non-Toyoda Toyota execs, he seems to be taking the company in the right direction, increasing R&D and pushing down costs.