Three men were especially prominent in creating the Toyota Production System: Sakichi Toyoda; his son, Kiichiro Toyoda; and a production engineer by the name of Taiichi Ohno.
Sakichi Toyoda was the inventor of automatic looms who founded the Toyota Group. He invented a loom in 1902 that would stop automatically if any of the threads snapped. His invention opened the way for automated loomworks where a single operator could handle dozens of looms.
Sakichi's invention reduced defects and raised yields, since a loom would not go on producing imperfect fabric and using up thread after a problem occurred. The principle of designing equipment to stop automatically and call attention to problems immediately is crucial to the Toyota Production System. It is evident on every production line at Toyota and at other companies that use the system.
When the Toyota Group set up an automobile-manufacturing operation in the 1930s, Sakichi's son Kiichiro headed the new venture. Kiichiro traveled to the United States to study Henry Ford's system in operation. He returned with a strong grasp of Ford's conveyor system and an even stronger determination to adapt that system to the small production volumes of the Japanese market
