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Consistently crafted cars roll off the assmebly line in a smooth flow.
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They are alive with the spirit of providing people with quality products through conscientious manufacturing and continuing research and development.
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This is the Toyota Production System, where manufactures eleminate waste to provide costumers with well made products in timely manner.
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At the heart of the Toyota Production System is the concept of Inteligent Automation and Just-In-Time manufacturing.
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Let's explore the history of that system, which is transformed manufacturing around the world.
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The concept of the Intelligent Automation called Jidoka, originated in looms invented by Sakichi Toyoda. The founder of the Toyoda Group
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Weaving traditionally had been a very manual kind of work.
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The weaver feed with horizontal arm back and forth between vertical yarns.
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Sakichi had watched his mother working at manual loom and thought of ways to make weaving easier.
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He invented an original wooden hand loom in 1890.
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His loom was easier to use and nearly fifthy percent more eficient then previous looms.
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The operator could move the arm guide back and forth with one hand and feeding in a horizontal arms simultaneously.
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Sakichi then went to work on power looms and in 1886 he created Japanes first power loom
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and he continued making one improvment after another.
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In 1924 Sakichi and his son Kichiro achieved an historic breakthrough.
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They created the worlds first high-speed loom that feed in new weft the horizontal yarn reliable without interrupting work.
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Let's take a look a feature of their breakthrough non stop loom, the model G.
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Traditional looms wasted material on fabric like this, when one of the vertical warp arms snapped. That offen happened.
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To prevent this waste Sakichi and Kichiro arranged thin metal floaters over the vertical yarns.
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A flouter would slip down and stop the loom if its yarn snapped.
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These automatic stop innovations for preventing waste were absolutely remarkable.
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Sakichi had created sophisticated sensors and he had done that without the benefit of electrical and the optical technology we now take for granted.
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His innovations eleminated the need for an operator to watch over each loom continuously.
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One operator could over see more than over 30 looms.
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The model G captured a great deal with attention in Europe and the United States.
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So, Sakichi advances resulted in machines that would stop automatically if problems occurred.
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That would not produced defective work and did not obligate people to serve as monitors.
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The middle character in the Japanese word for Automation, "Jidoka" is "DO", for movement.
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Then Sakichi replaced that character with one that means "value-added work".
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Note the additional element on the left hand side which represents people.
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Sikichi's Jidoka put the human element into automation.
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The other core concept in the Toyota Production System is Just-in-Time manufacturing.
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This concept originated in the ideas of Sakichi son Kichiro, who led the Toyoda into automobile manufacturing.
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Along with working with his father on the model G loom. Kichiro helped put in place a mass production system.
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He established Toyoda automatic loom works in 1926...
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and indroduced American assembly line methods to produce model G loom.
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Kichiro travelled to Europe and North America in 1929...
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to find licensees for his companies automatic loom technology.
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He was amazed at all vehicle and the roads in United States.
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And he resolved to begin developing of the automobiles.
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People tried to dissuade Kichiro, they said that Japan didn't have either the technology
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or the economic foundation for variable car industry.
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But he ignored their doubts and set-up a shop in a loom factory to develop small engines.
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He under took the risk of ivesting in expensive precision equipment.
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In 1935 his team created a passenger car prototype Toyoda model A1.
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In a following year the first Toyoda passenger car went in to production as the Toyoda model AA.
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Kichiro incorporated his automobile operations in 1937 and began work on a vehicle plant.
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He refined the American mass production methods for his plant
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and developed the beginnings of Just-in-Time manufacturing.
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The idea was to eliminate waste by making only what was needed, only when it was needed and only in the amount needed.
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Making quality cars of satisfactory performance required an all out effort.
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And Kichiro was moving to refine Just-in-Time manufacturing further.
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The outbreak of World War II in 1941 interrupted his efforts.
