-
1913
Henry Ford introduces mass production at the Ford Motor Company factory. -
1924
Sakichi Toyoda develops an automatic loom that stops automatically when it detects broken threads. -
1948
Kiichiro Toyoda, son of Sakichi Toyoda, founds Toyota Motor Corporation. -
1950
Taiichi Ohno is appointed head of production at Toyota and begins to develop the Toyota production system. -
1953
The kanban system is introduced at Toyota. -
1962
The book "Toyota Production System" by Taiichi Ohno is published. -
1980
The American company Motorola implements the Six Sigma system, based on lean manufacturing, in its processes. -
1990
The American company General Electric implements the Six Sigma system in its processes. -
1996
The book "Lean Thinking" by James Womack and Daniel Jones is published, popularizing the term "lean manufacturing." -
2001
The book "The Machine That Changed the World" by James Womack, Daniel Jones and Daniel Roos is published, detailing the Toyota production system. -
2010
The U.S. company Tesla Motors implements lean manufacturing in its electric car factory. -
2015
The American company Amazon implements lean manufacturing in its warehouses and shipping processes. -
2018
Japanese company Fujitsu implements lean manufacturing in its hardware factory.