-
Henry Ford introduces mass production at the Ford Motor Company factory.
-
Sakichi Toyoda develops an automatic loom that stops automatically when it detects broken threads.
-
Kiichiro Toyoda, son of Sakichi Toyoda, founds Toyota Motor Corporation.
-
Taiichi Ohno is appointed production manager at Toyota and begins developing the Toyota production system.
-
The kanban system is introduced at Toyota.
-
The book "Toyota Production System" by Taiichi Ohno is published.
-
The American company Motorola implements the Six Sigma system, based on lean manufacturing, in its processes.
-
The American company Tesla Motors implements lean manufacturing in its electric car factory.
-
The American company Amazon implements lean manufacturing in its warehouses and shipping processes.
-
The COVID-19 pandemic drives accelerated adoption of lean manufacturing practices to increase resilience and efficiency in supply chains.