Toyota has lost a founding lion

From the New York Times' obituary:

In 1985

Eiji Toyoda, who as a member of Toyota Motor’s founding family and an architect of its “lean manufacturing” method helped turn 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.  ...

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.   ...

Even as he aggressively expanded production at Toyota, Mr. Toyoda applied 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 core part of what came to be called the Toyota Production System and a corporate ethos 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.