Fujio Cho

Biographical Summary

Fujio Cho (張富士夫, February 2, 1937 — February 14, 2023) was a Toyota executive who played a pivotal role in taking the Toyota Production System global. Born in Dalian, Manchukuo (now China) — the same city where Taiichi Ohno was born 25 years earlier — Cho spent his entire career at Toyota, rising from a young law graduate to become the company’s President (1999-2005) and Chairman (2006-2013). He is particularly significant for three contributions: his role in establishing Toyota’s North American manufacturing operations, his direct lineage as a practitioner of TPS methods learned from Ohno’s disciples, and his leadership of the effort to codify The Toyota Way in 2001 as Toyota’s first formal articulation of its management philosophy for a global audience.

Education and Early Career

Cho was born on February 2, 1937 in Dalian, Manchukuo (Japanese-occupied northeastern China). His family’s registered domicile was in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. He attended elementary, middle, and high school in Tokyo, including Tokyo Metropolitan Komaba High School. He graduated from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law in March 1960 — a notably different educational background from the engineers who typically rose through Toyota’s production ranks.

In April 1960, Cho joined Toyota Motor Corporation. Despite his law degree, he was drawn into production-side work and gained experience under the Production Engineering division. Critically, he learned kaizen principles and TPS methods directly from Yoshikazu Suzumura, who headed Toyota’s production research division and was himself a protege of Taiichi Ohno. This direct connection to Ohno’s lineage of TPS practitioners shaped Cho’s entire career trajectory.

North American Operations

NUMMI (1984)

In December 1984, Toyota and General Motors established New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) in Fremont, California — a 50/50 joint venture with each company investing $100 million. The venture used GM’s former Fremont assembly plant to produce a Corolla-based compact car and later the Toyota Corolla itself (from September 1986).

NUMMI was historically significant as the first major test of whether TPS could work with an American workforce in an American factory. Toyota sent approximately 30 managers and production coordinators from Japan to establish TPS operations. Tatsuro Toyoda (a member of the founding family) served as NUMMI’s first president. Cho was among the Toyota personnel involved in the planning and coordination of North American production operations during this period.

NUMMI became a learning laboratory: it demonstrated that TPS principles — kanban, andon, standardized work, kaizen — were transferable across cultures when properly taught and supported. This lesson was essential for everything Toyota built in North America afterward.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky (TMMK)

Toyota’s first wholly owned U.S. manufacturing plant was established in January 1986 as Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc. (TMM, later renamed Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. — TMMK). The Georgetown, Kentucky location in Scott County was selected in December 1985 after Toyota evaluated proposals from 29 U.S. states and 8 Canadian provinces.

Cho was deeply involved in the establishment and early operations of TMMK. The plant was designed to manufacture approximately 200,000 Camry sedans annually. Kaneyoshi Kusunoki served as the first president of TMM. The Tsutsumi Plant in Japan served as the “mother plant,” providing technical guidance.

The first Camry rolled off the Georgetown line in May 1988, and full-scale production began in October 1988. The plant’s slogan was “Today’s Quality Produces Tomorrow’s Successes.” By 1989, North American production across three facilities (NUMMI, TMMK, and Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada) had expanded to 250,000 vehicles — up from 70,000 the previous year.

Cho’s work at Georgetown was formative. He was responsible for transferring TPS practices to an American workforce that had no prior automotive manufacturing experience — Kentucky’s first auto plant. This required translating not just production techniques but the underlying management culture of genba-based problem solving, respect for people, and continuous improvement.

The Toyota Way (2001)

Perhaps Cho’s most far-reaching contribution came during his presidency. In 2001, Toyota published “The Toyota Way 2001” — the company’s first formal codification of its management philosophy. Cho, as President, championed this initiative, explaining that Toyota needed to “transcend the diverse languages and cultures of our employees and to communicate our philosophy to them.”

The Toyota Way rests on two foundational pillars:

1. Continuous Improvement (改善, kaizen) — encompassing challenge, kaizen itself, and genchi genbutsu (go and see for yourself)
2. Respect for People — encompassing respect and teamwork

This was not a new philosophy — it was what Toyota had practiced for decades. But as Toyota expanded rapidly across the globe in the 1990s and 2000s, with plants and operations in dozens of countries staffed by people who had never worked alongside Japanese TPS practitioners, Cho recognized that the philosophy needed to be made explicit. What had previously been transmitted through years of on-the-job mentoring and osmosis now needed a written form that could serve as a reference point for a global workforce.

The Toyota Way codification was later popularized worldwide through Jeffrey K. Liker’s 2004 book The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer, which expanded the internal document into a comprehensive management framework.

Toyota Presidency (1999-2005)

Cho succeeded Hiroshi Okuda as President of Toyota Motor Corporation in 1999. During his seven-year tenure:

• Toyota achieved record profits in fiscal year 2004
• The Lexus brand was launched in Japan in August 2004 (it had been available in export markets since 1989)
• Toyota continued its aggressive global expansion, with new plants and increased production capacity worldwide
• The company progressively modernized its vehicle lineup, discontinuing traditional models and introducing new ones
• The Toyota Way was formally codified and disseminated globally

Cho was succeeded as President by Katsuaki Watanabe in 2005.

Toyota Chairmanship and Later Career

• 2006-2013: Chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation (8th generation chairman)
• 2006-2008: President of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association
• 2011-2017: President (15th) of the Japan Sport Association
• 2013-2017: Honorary Chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation
• 2013-2021: Chairman of the All Japan Kendo Association
• 2017-2020: Advisor to Toyota Motor Corporation
• Served as an external board member of Sony Corporation (from 2006)
• Named “Industry Leader of the Year” by the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2001

Connection to Taiichi Ohno

Cho’s relationship to Ohno was not that of a direct student sitting at the master’s feet, but rather that of a practitioner trained through Ohno’s system and Ohno’s disciples. The Japanese Wikipedia identifies Cho as one of Ohno’s notable successors (along with others like Kaneaki Kusunoki of Hino Motors). Cho learned TPS methods through Yoshikazu Suzumura, who was directly trained by Ohno and led Toyota’s production research operations.

This lineage mattered. When Cho went to the United States to help establish Toyota’s manufacturing operations, he brought not just techniques but the management philosophy and problem-solving approach that Ohno had developed. The transfer of TPS to North America was not primarily a matter of installing kanban cards and andon cords — it was a matter of teaching people a different way of thinking about work. Cho’s career was, in many ways, the proof that Ohno’s system could be taught, learned, and practiced by people who had never met Ohno himself.

Death and Legacy

Fujio Cho died on February 14, 2023, at the age of 86.

What Cho Accomplished

Globalizing TPS. Cho was a key figure in proving that the Toyota Production System was not uniquely Japanese but universally applicable. His work at NUMMI and Georgetown demonstrated that TPS could function with American workers, American suppliers, and American management — a proposition that was genuinely uncertain in the 1980s.

Codifying the Toyota Way. By formalizing Toyota’s management philosophy in 2001, Cho created a reference document that allowed Toyota to maintain cultural coherence as it expanded to over 50 countries. This was a delicate task: the codification needed to be specific enough to be meaningful but flexible enough to work across cultures.

Bridging production and management. As a law graduate who mastered production-side TPS, Cho embodied the idea that Toyota’s way of working was not limited to the factory floor. His career demonstrated that TPS thinking — direct observation, continuous improvement, respect for people — applied to executive leadership as much as to assembly operations.

Sustaining the lineage. Cho represented the second generation of TPS leadership — those who learned from Ohno’s direct students and carried the philosophy forward into a global context. His success in transmitting TPS abroad validated Ohno’s belief that the system was a way of thinking, not merely a set of Japanese manufacturing techniques.

Key Dates