ABSTRACT
TaiichiOhno,who died in 1990, is perhaps less well remembered than his work.Hewas the creator of the demand driven, ‘just-in-time’ Toyota Production Systemwhich hasmorphed into ‘Lean Manufacturing’. Born in China in 1912 and a graduate of Nagoya Technical High School, he worked initially with Toyoda Spinning before joining the vehicle business in 1943 where he completed his career, eventually working primarily to develop Toyota thinking in suppliers to the business. His most widely read work is Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production,
originally published in Japanese in 1978, and in English by Productivity Press in 1988. In a foreword to that text, Muramatsu Rintaro describes Ohno as ‘a determined man’ who ‘always challenged existing concepts’ and ‘able to conceive of and apply improvements that are both accurate and swift’.
