Faleceu Eiji Toyoda

[Santos Silva]

The New York Times




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September 17, 2013


Eiji Toyoda, Promoter of 'Toyota Way,' Dies at 100

By HIROKO TABUCHI


TOKYO — Eiji Toyoda, who as a member of Toyota Motor's founding family and an architect of its "lean manufacturing" method helped turned the automaker into a global powerhouse and changed the face of modern manufacturing, died on Tuesday in Toyota City, Japan, where the company has its headquarters. He was 100.

His death, at the Toyota Memorial Hospital, was caused by heart failure, the company said in a statement.

Mr. Toyoda, a nephew of the Toyota Group founder, Sakichi Toyoda, was president of Toyota from 1967 to 1982 and continued as chairman and then as adviser until his death. In almost six decades with the company he helped transform a tiny spinoff of a textile loom maker into the world's biggest automaker.

Early on, he helped put Toyota at the forefront of a wave of automobile production in Japan, pushing it to bolster its lineup, first by adding compact vehicles and sports cars in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s he initiated the development of luxury models to compete with the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW, culminating with the Lexus brand in 1989.

Mr. Toyoda also pushed Toyota's expansion overseas, helping to establish the company's joint factory with General Motors in Fremont, Calif. The plant, known as Nummi, introduced Japanese lean-production methods to the United States as part of a migration of Japanese auto manufacturing to American soil. The company's manufacturing efficiencies have helped maintain Toyota's status as one of the top auto manufacturers and employers in the world.

Nummi closed in 2010. It is now the site of a factory that makes the electric car trailblazer Tesla Motor.

In the early 1990s, it was Mr. Toyoda, known as a man of few words, who gave voice to a sense of crisis inside the company as Japan's economic growth sputtered, arguing that Toyota needed to change the way it made cars if it hoped to survive in the 21st century. His urgings prompted the development of its popular Prius gas-electric hybrid, the manufacturing expert Satoshi Hino wrote in the 2005 book "Inside the Mind of Toyota."

Mr. Toyoda was born on Sept. 12, 1913, near Nagoya in central Japan, the second son of Heikichi and Nao Toyoda. He spent much of his youth at his family's textile mill and took an early interest in machines, he said in his 1988 autobiography, "Toyota: Fifty Years in Motion." He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1936 with a mechanical engineering degree and joined his family's loom business.

The following year, Kiichiro Toyoda, son of the founder, created Toyota Motor, taking the young Eiji Toyoda with him.

Assigned to a division devoted to resolving quality problems, Mr. Toyoda is said to have developed an uncanny ability to spot waste.

"Problems are rolling all around in front of your eyes," Mr. Toyoda said of those days in "Inside the Mind of Toyota." "Whether you pick them up and treat them as problems is a matter of habit. If you have the habit, then you can do whatever you have a mind to."

In 1950 he set out on what would turn out to be a pivotal three-month tour to survey Ford's Rouge plant in Detroit, then the largest and most efficient factory in the world. Before the war, the military government prevented Toyota from building passenger cars, compelling it to make trucks for Japan's war effort instead.

By 1950, Toyota had produced just 2,685 automobiles, compared with the 7,000 vehicles the Rouge plant was rolling out in a single day, according to "The Machine That Changed the World," a 1990 study by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones and Daniel Roos.

Mr. Toyoda was unfazed, writing back to headquarters that he "thought there were some possibilities to improve the production system." He brought back a thick booklet that outlined some of Ford's quality-control methods; the company translated it into Japanese, changing "Ford" to "Toyota" in all references.

Mr. Toyoda went on to oversee Toyota's Motomachi plant, a huge undertaking that gave the automaker the capacity to produce 5,000 passenger vehicles a month at a time when all of Japan produced about 7,000 vehicles a month. The plant, completed in 1959, was soon running at full capacity and gave Toyota a decisive lead over its domestic rival Nissan and the confidence to turn its eyes overseas.

Even as he aggressively expanded production at Toyota, Mr. Toyoda implemented a manufacturing culture based on concepts like "kaizen," a commitment to continuous improvements suggested by the workers themselves, and just-in-time production, a tireless effort to eliminate waste. Those ideas became a corporate philosophy known as the "Toyota Way."

"One of the features of the Japanese workers is that they use their brains as well as their hands," he said in an interview with the author Masaaki Imai for the 1986 book "Kaizen." "Our workers provide 1.5 million suggestions a year, and 95 percent of them are put to practical use. There is an almost tangible concern for improvement in the air at Toyota."

The methods Mr. Toyoda nurtured have had global influence. Though Toyota long guarded its manufacturing techniques, the company came to recognize a broader interest in its model and has offered consulting services to manufacturers outside the automotive industry and to nonprofit organizations. As part of its community service programs, Toyota now trains workers at the Food Bank for New York City in ways to optimize flow and quality through streamlining and enhancing performance.

In 1994, the United States Automotive Hall of Fame inducted Mr. Toyoda for his contributions to car manufacturing. He was the second honoree from Japan, after the Honda Motor founder, Soichiro Honda.

"Ever since Toyota's establishment in 1937, I have been involved in this wonderful business, and as long as my engine keeps running, I intend to give back as much as I can for the industry's further development," Mr. Toyoda said in a statement at the time.

Mr. Toyoda had three sons and a daughter with his wife, Kazuko. He is survived by Kanshiro, his eldest son.

[Santos Silva]

In www.maismotores.net


Eiji Toyoda faleceu hoje com 100 anos vítima de problemas cardíacos no Japão. O líder da marca japonesa foi responsável pela sua expansão aos Estados Unidos, e enfrentou as poderosas Ford e General Motors no seu território.

Ao longo da sua carreira de praticamente 6 décadas, o primo mais novo do fundador da Toyota Motor Company, tornou um fabricante sob licença de automóveis da Chevrolet num dos exemplos de eficiência industrial e que rapidamente se tornaria motivo de inveja da General Motors e da Ford Motor Company. Eiji Toyoda abandonou as suas funções em 1994, quando a Toyota invadia os Estados Unidos com o Corolla, dava os primeiros passos com a Lexus e iniciava o projeto do automóvel a gasolina e eletricidade mais eficiente do mundo, o Prius. Eiji foi um dos seis presidentes da Toyota, familiares do seu fundador.

Com a morte de um dos líderes ais importantes da sua história, as ações da Toyota caíram 0,6% para 6,240 yen na Bolsa de Tóquio, enquanto que o índice Nikkei 225 perdia em média 0,7%.

Ao longo dos 69 anos em que trabalhou para a companhia, baseada em Toyota City no Centro do Japão, Eiji foi responsável por um importante papel de transição na gestão da marca japonesa. À data a Toyota montava modelos a partir de peças originais da GM, tendo depois permitido à companhia japonesa tornar-se 16 vezes mais valiosa do que a gigante de Detroit GM a quem comprava peças. Para implementar este modelo, a pesquisa e análise de práticas da Ford e da própria GM foram fatores determinantes.

Toyoda presidiu à Toyota Motor Company desde 1967 até 1982, uma das mais longas passagens de alguém pelo lugar mais alto da companhia.

Toyoda foi o pai do 'Kaizen' e do 'Jidoka'



Durante a sua era na liderança a marca inaugurou pelo menos 10 novas fábricas, iniciou a sua exportação para dezenas de novos países, e tornou ainda mais preciso o processo de produção em termos de prazos e tempos, fatores decisivos para a consolidação do nível de excelência pelo qual a marca é hoje universalmente conhecida. Um dos sinais dessa força industrial é o Corolla, um dos automóveis mais vendidos na história do automóvel. Visionário sempre atento, Toyoda sempre sublinhou a importância dos conceitos de fabricação que se tornaram nos princípios elementares de produção da Toyota. Assim termos como o 'kaizen', que significa 'melhoria continua' e o 'jidoka' que quer dizer uso de máquinas que param quando detetam irregularidades devem-se a este importante líder e gestor nipónico. Estes são os dois principais fundamentos do chamado Toyota Production System, um conjunto de regras de gestão que foram adotadas não só por outras marcas de automóveis, como também, por outras indústrias, já que é um método rigoroso de eliminação de inventório excessivo de peças e outros imobilizados.

A Eiji Toyoda é reconhecido o mérito de ter aperfeiçoado a produção de automóveis, o que garantiu aos nipónicos praticamente invadir o mundo e dando verdadeiras lições de gestão a outros construtores de craveira universal como a GM com quem em 1983 assinou uma importante joint venture de produção de automóveis em Fremont (Califórnia). Com este vital acordo, Eiji demonstrou que as suas importantes ideias industriais e princípios de gestão podiam ser aplicadas a todas as culturas. Este sucesso de intercâmbio industrial é considerado como um alicerce da implementação das indústrias Toyota noutros países como o Canadá, Inglaterra e França.

Visão de Toyoda lançou Lexus em guerra contra a Mercedes e BMW

Ainda durante a sua passagem pela liderança da Toyota, Eiji foi um dos principais responsáveis pela construção do plano 'Lexus'. A aprovação deste plano aconteceu em 1983 com o desenvolvimento de um automóvel de luxo em 1983 de forma a competir com os importantes concorrentes europeus Mercedes e BMW. A venda deste automóvel, o LS400, arrancaria nos Estados Unidos em 1989.

[Kaizen]

Foi Eiji Toyoda que lançou as bases para uma marca global, eficiente, lucrativa e liderante. Os anos da sua presidência coincide com a época dos carros que mais gostámos. Por tudo, um agradecimento profundo.


Um detalhe sobre a história da Toyota no mercado norte-americano é, o modelo que alavancou o sucesso comercial na segunda tentativa de entrada neste mercado foi o Corona e não o Corolla.
O Corolla foi o modelo mais importante para a estratégia global, tornando-se o carro mais vendido de sempre.

Corona:


e Corona MarkII:

[Santos Silva]

Uma visita com a esposa à Fabrica de OVAR ao lado do Sr. Salvador Fernandes Caetano.

[Earthp]

Um homem com visão...que permitiu à Toyota conquistar o mundo.