Toyota Expert Interviews

A Fortune magazine profile by Clay Chandler of Toyota CEO Fujio Cho, named Fortune's Asia Businessman of the Year for 2004. It covers Toyota's global expansion, the challenge of transplanting the Toyota Production System overseas, the Global Production Center and Toyota Institute training efforts, China strategy, and hybrid plans, drawing on Cho's recollections of supervising the Georgetown, Kentucky plant from 1986.

Summary notes from an interview with Tomo "Tom" Harada, who spent 35 years with Toyota in engineering, maintenance, and manufacturing management and helped start the Kamigo engine plant in 1965 under Taiichi Ohno. Harada explains why equipment maintenance is a hidden strength of TPS, describes Toyota's five maintenance categories, the differences between assembly and engine plant maintenance organization, and why Toyota does not manage by OEE.

Summary notes from an interview with Tomo "Tom" Harada on the jidoka pillar of TPS. Harada traces jidoka's origin to Sakichi Toyoda's automatic loom, explains its two meanings (separating man from machine and building in quality at the process), gives visible and invisible examples from assembly and machining, describes the evolution of andon boards, and stresses stopping machines to surface hidden problems.

An interview with Isao "Ike" Kato, who spent 35 years with Toyota in manufacturing, HR, training and development, and supplier development, and who coordinated Shigeo Shingo's consulting visits to Toyota. Kato describes Shingo's role from the mid 1950s onward as an industrial engineering instructor through the P-course, his training of several thousand engineers, and disputes the account that Shingo invented SMED at Toyota, noting Toyota reduced changeover times internally from the late 1940s.

Ten leadership principles from Masao Nemoto, managing director of Toyota, who led efforts to develop total quality control and JIT production at the company. Compiled by Toyota managers as "The Sayings of Nemoto," the principles cover continuous improvement, coordination between divisions, everyone speaking, not scolding, teaching, rotation, deadlines, rehearsal, inspection follow-through, and listening to subordinates. Excerpted from The Vest-Pocket CEO (Alexander Hiam, 1990), condensed from David Lu's translation of Nemoto's 1987 book.

Summary notes from a July 2006 conversation with Minoru Haga, a 40-year Toyota veteran who headed the tooling section of Production Engineering Department No. 1 and later became President of Fuji Seiki Ltd. Covers how Toyota’s centralized production engineering groups plan processes, how all cutting tools are tested and approved before plant use, and why Haga sees tooling as a hidden competitive strength of TPS rarely visible to outside observers.

Summary notes from a July 2006 interview with Yoshio Oka, a former Toyota production manager who spent close to 40 years at the Honsha, Motomachi, Kamigo, and Shimoyama plants. Covers Toyota’s make-versus-buy concentration on the roughly 30 percent of parts made in-house, the engineering documents created upstream of standardized work, internal training taught by production leaders two levels up, and how Toyota develops production managers.

Summary notes from a July 2006 interview with Mr. Nakano, a supervisor and tooling regrind expert in Toyota’s Production Engineering Department No. 1 from 1964, who supported engine plants in Japan and startups in Indonesia, China, and Thailand. Explains why Toyota keeps process planning, tooling specification, and regrind in-house, how the regrind section applies TPS with timed pickup and delivery routes and standardized work, and how catalogued troubleshooting items trace part defects back to tooling.

Summary notes from an interview with Masatoshi Miyazaki, a 35-year veteran of Toyota’s Production Engineering Department No. 1 who later served as a special technical director at Aisin. He recounts the February 1, 1997 fire at Aisin’s Kariya plant, the sole source for proportioning valves, and the rebuild of the machining line from product drawings in under a month. He argues Toyota’s real strength is efficient process planning and mono-zukuri beneath the visible TPS tools.

Summary notes from a July 2006 interview with Katsuya Jibiki, who spent 38 years in the Honsha press shop, rising from machine operator in 1958 to division manager. He traces set-up reduction from Ohno-era machine shop improvements through the 1960 Danly quick die change presses at Motomachi and a decade of work on roughly 50 older Honsha presses, with before-and-after changeover times. He also disputes the account of Toyota set-up reduction given in Shigeo Shingo’s SMED book while crediting Shingo with coining the terminology.