Eiji Toyoda
| Eiji Toyoda 豊田 英二 |
|
|---|---|
| Born |
12 September 1913 Nagoya, Japan |
| Died | 17 September 2013 (aged 100) Toyota, Aichi |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Education | Tokyo Imperial University |
| Occupation |
President (1967–1981) and Chairman (1981–1994) Toyota Motor Corporation |
Eiji Toyoda (豊田 英二 Toyoda Eiji?, 12 September 1913 – 17 September 2013) was a Japanese industrialist. He was largely responsible for bringing Toyota Motor Corporation to profitability and worldwide prominence during his tenure as president and later, as chairman.
Toyoda studied mechanical engineering at Tokyo Imperial University from 1933 to 1936. During this time his cousin Kiichiro established an automobile plant at the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in the city of Nagoya in central Japan. Toyoda joined his cousin in the plant at the conclusion of his degree and throughout their lives they shared a deep friendship. In 1938, Kiichiro asked Eiji to oversee construction of a newer factory about 32 km east of Nagoya on the site of a red pine forest 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.
Toyoda visited Ford River Rouge Complex at Dearborn, Michigan during the early 1950s. He was awed by the scale of the facility but dismissive of what he saw as its inefficiencies. Toyota Motor had been in the business of manufacturing cars for 13 years at this stage, and had produced just over 2,500 automobiles. The Ford plant in contrast manufactured 8,000 vehicles a day. Due to this experience, Toyoda decided to adopt American automobile mass production methods but with a qualitative twist.
Toyoda collaborated with Taiichi Ohno, a veteran loom machinist, to develop core concepts of what later became known as the 'Toyota Way', such as the Kanban system of labeling parts used on assembly lines, which was an early precursor to bar codes. They also fine-tuned the concept of Kaizen, a process of incremental but constant improvements designed to cut production and labor costs while boosting overall quality.
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