Eiji Toyoda, RIP

[torqdork]

A giant in the automotive industry passed at age 100. FTA:



September 17, 2013 |

Eiji Toyoda was one of Toyota’s true founding fathers—from joining forces with his cousin Kiichiro in establishing Toyota Motor Company in 1937 to realizing a lifelong dream to rival Mercedes-Benz and BMW with the launch of Lexus in 1989. In between, he helped shape the development of the Toyota Production System and set the stage for Toyota’s success in America.

Toyoda—who was born in Nagoya, Japan, in 1913, and died of heart failure in Toyota City on Tuesday—grew up at the textile mill built by his father, Heichachi Toyoda, and his uncle, Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of the Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Toyota’s original business.

“So from my childhood, machines and business were always there right in front of me,” he said in a TIME magazine interview in 1999. “I probably developed an understanding of both.”

Toyoda’s formal career in the family business started in 1936, after he earned a mechanical engineering degree at Tokyo Imperial University. One year later, he began collaboration with Kiichiro, 18 years his senior, in the production of vehicles. World War II put the fledgling company’s progress on hold until 1950, when Toyoda traveled to America and toured Ford Motor Company’s manufacturing facility in Dearborn, Mich. The trip proved to be an eye-opener.

“We were producing 40 cars a day,” he recalled in TIME. “Ford was making 8,000 units, a 200-times difference. The gap was enormous.”

In response, Toyoda and his production specialist, Taiichi Ohno, focused on making many cars in small batches more efficiently than the big companies could. Small supplies of parts were brought to the production line frequently, rather than having a large stockpile by the line or in the warehouse, which was costly and less efficient. This was the genesis for the kanban or “just in time” delivery concept, one of the cornerstones of the Toyota Production System.

On New Year’s Day 1955, Toyoda put on his tuxedo and drove Toyota’s first full-scale production model, the Toyopet Crown, off the assembly line. The car was popular in Japan but was ill-suited to the American market, where it was introduced in 1957. Toyoda flew to the U.S. and told his sales force to focus its efforts on the Land Cruiser until the debut of the Corona sedan in 1965. The Corona was Toyota’s first major hit and cleared the way for steady growth and success. In 1972, Toyota passed Volkswagen to become the No. 1 import brand in America.

In 1982, Toyoda was named chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC). His new focus: to “build the world’s finest luxury performance sedan.” Some 1,400 engineers, 2,300 technicians and 220 support workers invested six years, built 450 prototypes and logged a million test miles before offering the Lexus LS 400 to American buyers in 1989. Lexus immediately began capturing market share from the top European luxury brands.

Toyoda stepped down as chairman in 1992, but continued on with TMC in an advisory role throughout the remainder of his life.

Numerous awards acknowledged his remarkable career. For example, in 1993, he became the first Japanese to claim the FISITA Medal, the highest international honor in automotive engineering. One year later, he became only the second Japanese at the time—after Soichiro Honda—to be inducted into the U.S. Automotive Hall of Fame. And in 1996, he was presented with the James Watt International Gold Medal by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

By Dan Miller

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Oh what a feeling! Toyota!!! :happy0180: