Eiji Adachi: Toyota Product Development and the Chief Engineer’s Craft

Eiji Adachi was a Toyota chief engineer. After he retired he wrote the first detailed accounts of the job in Japanese. The book is not a manual. He calls it a self described documentary. It follows real programs through the years after the 1973 oil shock, and it records what the work actually consists of. Adachi’s version of the chief engineer is not one who is a commander. He owns a whole vehicle and yet has almost no authority to give an order. The book describes how he manages and “wins” in the marketplace. It is one of the few accounts that focuses more on the craft of the role rather than the legend.

For the role in general, see the main guide, What Is the Toyota Chief Engineer (Shusa) System?.

Who Was Eiji Adachi?

Eiji Adachi (安達瑛二) was born in Tsuruoka, Yamagata Prefecture, in 1937. He graduated in aeronautical engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1960 and joined Toyota that year. He earned a doctorate in engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1971, for research on automotive body shake. He worked in body design and vibration testing, then joined the Product Planning Office, the staff group that held the company’s vehicle chief engineers. He was a chief staff member (主担当員) on the Mark II, Chaser, and Cresta programs through the 1970s. In 1981 he became a chief engineer (主査) in his own right, in charge of the Corona. He left Toyota in 1984 to teach at the Toyota Technological Institute, the university Toyota founded, where he is now professor emeritus. He wrote the book long after retiring in order to set down a process normally passed on by word of mouth. The programs were mainly in the 1970s and 1980s but they still provided a useful frame for understanding the nature of the position.

What Did a Chief Engineer Do With No Power to Give Orders?

In Adachi’s era a chief engineer ran a small group. On the Mark II it was only five direct reports. It consisted of the chief engineer, three staff members who were assistant chief engineers, and a secretary. One of the more remarkable aspects of the program according to Adachi was that small group had to pull a whole car together across thousands of engineers it did not command.

Like many other of the chief engineers who describe the role their approval was required on every drawing and document before anything was built. But in Adachi’s eyes the signature was never the real lever. He had no command authority over the engineers. They reported to their own functional bosses. What he had instead was in his words the right to persuade.

Adachi is precise about how far that right reached. He believed that the chief engineer could go and persuade anyone. He could go over his own boss to the president. He could go to a supplier Toyota had no relationship with. He needed no one’s permission. He judged what the work required it, and he went. In his view the reason command authority was withheld from the Chief Engineer was deliberate. Toyota believed a sound proposal should win on its merits. If the chief engineer could not persuade, the proposal was not good enough to win.

Through his recollections the book shows the levers in use. One example is that next version of a vehicle needed a new inline-six engine. Without it the program would fail in the competitive marketplace. The engine development department had no spare capacity. It was still backlogged with emissions and exhaust-gas work at the time and borrowing engineers from other groups. So Adachi himself, then a chief staff member (主担当員) entrusted by the chief engineer, went to the engine director in person and made the case. He did not argue only Product Planning’s side. He argued that rivals were just as stretched, so a new engine now would put Toyota years ahead of them in both performance and emissions. He framed it as a win for the engine department too. The engineering director agreed to consider it. Then the chief engineer himself went in person to the responsible directors and made the formal request. The engine director was persuaded and agreed in the end.

Adachi draws the maxim out plainly. Persuasion does not succeed unless the proposal benefits the other party as well. And work that decides whether a program lives or dies is work “a chief engineer stakes his life on and advances in person.”

Why Could a Chief Engineer Never Stop Proving Himself?

Adachi remarks that the job of a chief engineer had no tenure. You could be removed at any time by your superiors. The chief engineer was answerable across the whole field and at every stage. Planning meetings questioned his plan. Cost meetings questioned his numbers. Progress and quality meetings questioned his development timelines and results. After launch he answered for sales, market share, and profit.

At each meeting, until the target was hit, he had to propose countermeasures, report the results, and keep proving he could carry the role. If the targets kept missing, or if he lost the trust of the people inside the company and at the suppliers, the chief engineer simply lost the post. There was no protected seat and no one could save you except yourself.

The breadth of the program was deliberate. Adachi quotes a Toyota president on the scope of the job. “For the assigned vehicle model, the chief engineer is the president, and the president is the chief engineer’s helper.” And: “The chief engineer himself should forecast sales, and then compete with Sales to see whose forecast is correct.” The chief engineer was measured on whether the car sold, not only on whether it was well engineered.

How Did a Chief Engineer Drive Cost?

Adachi believed that cost planning was the chief engineer’s own work. Market analysis fixed the selling price first. The customer would not pay more, and rivals set the ceiling. Working back from that price, the car had to hit a cost target or it made no profit. So the chief engineer pursued performance, weight, and cost together from the start, because raising one tends to worsen the others.

Adachi shows how cost was run as a formal event. After the first prototypes were built, the company held a cost review meeting, also called Value Engineering or VE. The senior managing director over cost control sat at the center of the table and all proposals were reviewed. The responsible executives and department managers faced him. Parts from a disassembled prototype were laid out in the room. If anyone doubted a cost-reduction claim, the executives rechecked it on the spot.

The mechanics were exact. At the first such meeting, the expected reduction across the eighty-three parts under review was set at 480 yen. The whole company was to cooperate to realize it, and reporting progress to the executives was made obligatory until the number was reached. A target was not a hope. It was a number with a meeting behind it and an open obligation to report until it was met.

How Was a New Car Finally Approved?

According to Adachi the final decision on production during his era was a real event, not a stamp, or a meeting. When quality and the production system were nearly through the production-prototype stage, the company held a test-drive event for top management. The chief engineer explained the development background and the problems he had countered. Then very often the president and other executives got into the prototypes and drove them themselves to get a feel for the vehicle. They pointed out their evaluations and concerns to the chief engineer and his assistants both from driving and from the passenger seat. The chief engineer answered each point on the spot and described what countermeasures were available. Only after that and the conviction of top management was obtained would the actual start of production be agreed upon.

What Did Adachi Say About How a Chief Engineer Should Conduct Himself?

Two lessons in the book from Adachi are about character, not technique.

The first is about honesty and speed. A senior mentor had taught Adachi that good news can wait, but bad news cannot. “It is fine if reports of achievements are late, but apologies for mistakes are a race against every minute and second. If the other person notices first, your sincerity will be doubted.” From that advice he learned the inherent foolishness of cover ups or scheming to get ahead. A chief engineer who leads by persuasion lives on his credibility. One discovered cover-up is enough to lose it the rest of your career.

The second lesson is about learning from success. Adachi records it from a lecture by one of the executives who built the Toyota Production System. “When people fail, they will often reflect and ask why. But even when things go well, it is also important to reflect on why they went well. Only then can you truly understand what should be done.” Adachi took it as the knack of creating something new rather than copying a predecessor. For a chief engineer whose job is to make a car that did not exist before, knowing why a thing worked matters as much as knowing why a thing failed.

What Is the Book?

Toyota Product Development is somewhat oddly written as a self styled documentary. It frequently uses stories and drama to make a point. Hakuto Shobo published it in 2014 long after Adachi retired from Toyota. The full Japanese title translates as Toyota Product Development: A Record of the Shusa System’s Strategy, Development, and Mastery. The vehicle and company names are real. The personal names used however are pseudonyms, and Adachi simplified some internal department and meeting names for a general reader. He states that he wrote it from memory after years of teaching the subject to students after he retired. The lessons, the engineering, the cost figures, and the strategy are real Toyota practice and his own experience. It is one of the first detailed insider accounts of the role ever published.

Where to Buy

Toyota Product Development (ドキュメントトヨタの製品開発：トヨタ主査制度の戦略、開発、制覇の記録) is available in Japanese only. Hakuto Shobo published it in 2014, ISBN 978-4-561-52089-4. You can buy it new or used from Amazon.co.jp, Kinokuniya, Rakuten Books, and other Japanese booksellers. There is no English edition.

Sources

This article draws on Eiji Adachi’s Toyota Product Development (ドキュメントトヨタの製品開発, Hakuto Shobo, 2014), a Japanese-language primary source by a former Toyota chief engineer, together with firsthand knowledge of the Toyota chief engineer system. The book uses pseudonyms for individuals. Quotations translated from the Japanese are the author’s renderings. AI was used in the editing of this article.

Art Smalley is president of Art of Lean, Inc.