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Taiichi Ohno

tie-EE-chee OH-no
Also Known As Ohno Taiichi · Taiichi Ohno
Industrial Engineering

Taiichi Ohno joined the Toyoda industrial group in 1932 and moved to Toyota Motor Company in 1943, where he became a production engineer. Building on Kiichiro Toyoda's vision that parts should arrive at the assembly line just in time for their use rather than sit warehoused, and studying both Henry Ford's moving assembly line and the restocking rhythm of American supermarkets, Ohno developed the set of practices that became known as the Toyota Production System, formally adopted company wide in 1962. His approach organized production around eliminating waste in all its forms, a principle later generalized outside Toyota as lean manufacturing. He is often called the father of the Toyota Production System.

Facts
Birth Year
1912 1
Birth Date
1912-02-29 1
Death Year
1990 1
Death Date
1990-05-28 1
Nationality
Japanese 2
Connections

Associated With

Principal architect of the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing.

In Field

Source Taiichi Ohno (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

Invented

Source Kanban (Wikipedia)
Source The Origins of TPS (Creative Safety Supply)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Taiichi Ohno (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationIn Field: Industrial Engineering, Lead section
Quote, In Field: Industrial Engineering, Lead section
Ohno Taiichi (大野耐一, Ōno Taiichi; February 29, 1912, May 28, 1990) was a Japanese industrial engineer and businessman.
View the Source
2. The Origins of TPS (Creative Safety Supply)
Creative Safety SupplyView the Source
Kanban (Wikipedia)
Invented: Kanban System, Lead section
Quote, Invented: Kanban System, Lead section
Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota, developed kanban to improve manufacturing efficiency.
View the Source
Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Taiichi Ohno called the father of the Toyota Production System?

He built the Toyota Production System from the shop floor, devised the seven wastes, and wrote the books that carried it abroad.

Ohno is considered the father of the Toyota Production System, which inspired Lean Manufacturing in the U.S. He joined Toyoda Spinning in 1932, moved to the Toyota motor company in 1943 as a shop-floor supervisor in the engine manufacturing shop, and gradually rose through the ranks to become an executive. As part of the system he devised the seven wastes, known in Japanese as muda, and he wrote several books about it, including Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production. His principles later spread beyond manufacturing into services, for example Just In Time applied to sales, marketing and customer service processes.
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