Photo: トヨタ自動車工業株式会社社史編集委員会 / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Eiji Toyoda

1913–2013

President of Toyota · Chairman of Toyota · Engineer

Japanese engineer who helped shape the Toyota Production System, became Toyota president in 1967 and as chairman took the company into luxury cars.

Born: 12 September 1913Nagoya, Japan
Died: 17 September 2013Toyota City, Aichi, Japan
Nationality: Japanese

Biography

Eiji Toyoda was born in Nagoya on 12 September 1913 and studied mechanical engineering at Tokyo Imperial University from 1933 to 1936. He then joined his cousin Kiichiro in the family business. In 1938 Kiichiro asked him to oversee the building of the Honsha plant in Koromo, the town later renamed Toyota City.

In the early 1950s he visited Ford's River Rouge complex. As managing director in that decade he also saw the underpowered Crown fail to win buyers in the United States. With Taiichi Ohno he worked on the ideas that became the Toyota Production System, including kanban and kaizen. He became the company's fifth president in 1967, and a year later the Corolla succeeded in the American market.

He moved up from president to chairman in the early 1980s. In 1983 he decided to compete in the luxury market, and that decision led to the launch of Lexus in 1989. He stepped down as chairman in 1994, aged 81, and the Automotive Hall of Fame added him to its members that year. He died in Toyota City on 17 September 2013, five days after turning 100.