Henry Ford was a pioneer and wrote history with the Ford Model T. He introduced the assembly line to the auto industry after visiting slaughterhouses in Chicago. In the slaughterhouses, the pigs were attached to the ceiling with hooks and were pulled on rails. Henry Ford picked up this idea and applied it to the automotive industry.

Sakichi Toyoda studied problems in practice by observing processes for hours. The intention was to determine the real cause of the problem, to analyze it and to test the success of its solution. This principle is still characterizing the Toyota Production System and is also known under the name "Genchi Genbutsu".

Jidoka

The Jidoka principle is one of the pillars of the Toyota Production System. The idea is based on the invention of an independently stopping loom. As soon as a thread broke, the loom stopped automatically. In this way, no defective products could be made. The cause was immediately investigated and remedied. Subsequent rework and scrap material was avoided.

Kaizen

The Japanese work philosophy Kaizen means “improvement for the good” (Kai = Change and Zen = Good). It describes the pursuit of continuous improvement. The improvement takes place in the step-by-step optimization of products or processes. Masaaki Imai contributed to the spread of the idea in the West with his book "Kaizen". Here the principle was further developed under the term CIP (Continuous Improvement Process).

Taiichi Ohno traveled to the USA in 1956 to find out about new manufacturing processes in the automotive industry. He noticed the “American supermarket concept”. No stock and need-based reordering. He adopted this concept for production at Toyota and developed the Kanban principle. He later built the Toyota Production System.

Shigeo Shingo was commissioned to reduce setup times as part of the development of the Toyota Production System. He developed the SMED concept (Single Minute Exchange of Dies) and the Poka Yoke principle (error prevention). In this way, errors that lead to high costs or quality issues in the further production process are avoided at an early stage.

Based on the theories of Walter A. Shewhart, William Deming developed the PDCA methodology (Plan, Do, Check, Act). Deming came to Japan in 1950 as a statistician and quality expert. In 1951 the first company was awarded with the Deming Prize for particularly high quality in production.

Kaoro Ishikawa developed the Ishikawa diagram, also known as the herringbone diagram. With this graphical representation of causes that lead to a result or influence these, causes of problems are to be recognized and represented. Ishikawa is one of the 7 quality tools of lean management today.