| Sakichi Toyoda is a national hero to Japan and was a | | | | invention. Continuous technological leaps were required |
| great industrial entrepreneur. He is referred to as the | | | | to sustain the development process. Each leap in |
| King of Japanese Inventors and the Japanese | | | | technology required upgraded equipment and |
| Thomas Edison. He was born in Kosai, Shizuoka in | | | | engineering know how as well as sufficient capital |
| 1867 and died in 1930. Toyoda founded many | | | | resources. |
| inventions including the automatic power loom which he | | | | This amazing technology development by Toyoda |
| implemented using the principle of autonomous | | | | brings to light some phenomena not well known. |
| automation, Jidoka. Jidoka means that the machine | | | | Toyoda's relationship with the general trading company |
| stops itself when a problem occurs instead of having | | | | Mitsui Bussan was strained periodically as the |
| human intervention. This principle later became part of | | | | entrepreneurial company demanded an individual |
| the Toyota Production System. | | | | development path. Mitsui Bussan provided critical |
| The story of Sakichi Toyoda is studed by every | | | | access to finance and markets. |
| Japanese school child. Even as late as 1985 he was | | | | There was a strong rivalry between the first and |
| listed as one of the ten most important inventors in | | | | second companies that Sakichi Toyoda founded, the |
| Japanese history. The textile company he founded | | | | Toyoda Loom Works and Toyoda Automatic Loom |
| eventually gave birth to Toyota Motor Corporation. In a | | | | Works. Toyoda sustained relationships of mutual |
| study of Japan technological advances it was noted | | | | support with key technologists. |
| that from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century | | | | Toyoda played a leading role in the introduction of the |
| Japanese researchers were skilled and original | | | | American system of interchangeable parts into |
| inventors, but had a weakness in commercializing the | | | | Japanese manufacturing. This was essential to the |
| ideas. An exception to this observation is of course, | | | | commercial success of mechanical inventions. Industrial |
| Toyoda Loom Works. Sakichi Toyoda developed | | | | researched was organized and played a leading role |
| ideas and his son Kiichiro put into place large scale | | | | early at Toyoda. Their efforts to develop new textile |
| research and extensive prototype and mill testing to | | | | technology prompted competition and promoted the |
| refine his father's inventions. | | | | development of human and technical resources that |
| There were three quantum leaps in technological | | | | rivals sought to mobilize. However Toyoda's strategy |
| advances by the Toyoda Loom Works which were a | | | | and structure led to the domination of these rivals. |
| narrow loom, iron broad loom and the automatic loom | | | | |