A Brief History of the Toyota Production System

From looms to lean: how Toyota rewired manufacturing—and what you can apply today.

A Brief History of the Toyota Production System is a fast, visual guide to the ideas that transformed a small Japanese loom works into one of the world’s most consistently profitable automakers. In under two hours of reading you’ll see how Sakichi Toyoda’s stop-the-loom insight evolved—through Kiichiro Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno—into the full Toyota Production System (TPS): a socio-technical approach that marries quality, flow, and respect for people.

Inside you’ll learn:

• The TPS “House”: goals on the roof, Jidoka & Just-in-Time pillars, and the stability / kaizen foundation.
• Why stopping for problems (andon) increases—not reduces—throughput.
• How pull systems & kanban shrink inventory and surface hidden waste.
• Seven classic wastes (& the often-forgotten eighth: underused talent).
• Heijunka, takt time, and flow leveling in plain language.
• Case snapshots: Corolla’s breakout, NUMMI’s culture shock, the hybrid era.

Written for engineers, ops managers, MBA students, startup builders, and anyone who wants a practical mental model of Lean. Each chapter ends with a “Gemba Prompt” you can take to the shop floor—or to a software team stand-up.

New in this edition: updated historical timeline; clarified NUMMI case; refreshed data on Toyota & global competitors; expanded glossary of Lean terms.

About the author: Jose Berengueres teaches visualization, design thinking, and operations at KTH and has coached manufacturing and tech teams worldwide.