A Case Study Of Toyota's Contribution To The World

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Who would have thought that a business as large as Toyota would have stemmed from an Automated Loom invention? Sakichi Toyoda wanted to make a positive contribution to society, with watching his mother wove cloth by hand, Sakichi set out to improve the weave industry. Sakichi invented a winding machine and opened his own business to sell it. However, Japan’s economy took a turn for the worse and Sakichi was forced to resign from the company. Misfortune did not cease him. He continued with his innovations which led to him and his son, Kiichiro, inventing a fully automatic loom. They started their own textile business known as Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. Sakichi traveled to the United States and Europe to study the textile industry and that is when his interest for the automobile began. Japan lacked an automobile manufacturer. Japan relied heavily on imports from the Big Three: Ford, GM, and Chrysler. When he returned to Japan, Kiichiro set aside a corner of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works for completing research on producing a small engine. Through much trial and error, …show more content…

Postwar Japan faced great hardships and Toyota felt the effects. Toyota was in financial trouble and faced restructuring or bankruptcy. The president of Toyota, Kiichiro Toyoda, tried everything to prevent employee layoffs, but it was inevitable, if the company was to be saved. With Japan being a collectivist society this action was unheard of. Kiichiro met with the employees and after that meeting there was 1,600 voluntary retirements. Feeling responsible for the turmoil, Kiichiro Toyoda resigned from being president to show respect to the workers. Toyota’s management team needed to regain the trust of the employees and vowed that the event would never happen again in Toyota. To obtain financial assistance Toyota Motor Corporation had to separate the sales from the production operations. Hence, Toyota Motor Sales Co, Ltd was

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