History and Innovation of Toyota



Abstract

This paper is a short overview of Toyota's history and innovation in their ways of doing things. History of Toyota as a company is rather long that's why only important aspects in it are touched upon. Aspects which contributed the most and helped this small Japanese firm in transforming itself into the second largest car producer, in terms of volume, in the world. The paper covers the general history as well as history in innovation of Toyota Motor Company, their philosophy, their accomplishments and their journey to become the global leader in the automobile industry

Introduction

Toyota's history begins when its founder Sakichi Toyoda was born on 14th February, 1867. This period is also marked by the beginning of industrialization and modernization in Japan. Toyoda was born achiever and started his achievements in the textile field and invented the most technologically advanced and modern loom of his time in 1897.

This sense of achievement motivated Sakichi to pursue his dream of building a modern and technologically advanced automobile. Sakichi with the money which he earned from successful loom technology and help of his son Kiichiro, invested research and begun to develop a modern automobile in 1930. As work progressed, Sakichi in September 1933 established “Automobile Department” within his company “Toyoda Automatic Loom Works”. April 1935 is marked by the completion of the first prototype of type A engine and then the first automobile “A1” thereafter

April 1936 is marked by the mass production of “A1” and “G1” a light truck based on the A1. This successful project led Kiichiro Toyoda to establish “Toyota motor company” on 28th August, 1937. For easier pronunciation and softer sounding, letter “d” in Toyoda was replaced by the letter T. (De Treville et al., 2004).

Toyota Motor Company started to export its automobiles right after the end of 2nd world war. The company worked hard and managed to export BM trucks and SA cars to Okinawa and Egypt, respectively by October 1947. That was the beginning to the journey of becoming world's second largest automobile producer in the world in terms of volume as in 1969, Toyota exported one million automobiles to different countries and after 10 years in 1979, TMC celebrated its 10th millionth exported car (which happened to be 1st generation Celica Supra).

Discussion

Toyota achieved this incredible success by developing the production system which is considered to be the best and most efficient in automobile production around the world. The main aspects of this production system are strict quality control, specialized training of labor force, minimized hierarchy which bred the strong, liberal and clear relationship between the managers and workers and forming close relationship with local communities (Forrester, 1958).

This innovative system formed the perfect base for the Toyota and its products to evolve dramatically. This dramatic evolution led Toyota to achieve Production basis globally to keep up with the demand. Uncompromising policy of using modern and most advanced technology in production of automobiles made the company an undisputed leader in efficient and modern ...