Toyoda studied
mechanical engineering at
Tokyo Imperial University from 1933 to 1936. During this time his cousin
Kiichiro established an automobile plant at the
Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in the city of Nagoya in central Japan. Known as the Honsha ("headquarters") plant, to this day it is considered the "mother factory" for Toyota Motor production facilities worldwide. Toyota Motor had been in the business of manufacturing cars for 13 years at this stage, and had produced just over 2,500 automobiles. The Ford plant in contrast manufactured 8,000 vehicles a day. Due to this experience, Toyoda decided to adopt American automobile mass production methods but with a qualitative twist. Toyoda collaborated with
Taiichi Ohno, a veteran loom machinist, to develop core concepts of what later became known as the 'Toyota Production System', such as the
Kanban system of labeling parts used on assembly lines, which was an early precursor to bar codes. They also fine-tuned the concept of
Kaizen, a process of incremental but constant improvements designed to cut production and labor costs while boosting overall quality. As a managing director of Toyota Motor, Toyoda failed in his first attempt to crack the U.S. market with the underpowered
Toyota Crown sedan in the 1950s, but he succeeded with the
Toyota Corolla compact in 1968, a year after taking over as president of the company. During the car's development phase, Toyoda, as executive vice-president, had to overcome the objections of then-president Fukio Nakagawa to install a newly developed 1.0-liter engine, air conditioning and automatic transmissions in the Corolla. Appointed the fifth president of Toyota Motor, Toyoda went on to become the company's longest serving chief executive thus far. In 1981, he stepped down as president and assumed the title of chairman. He was succeeded as president by
Shoichiro Toyoda. In 1983, as chairman, Eiji decided to compete in the luxury car market, which culminated in the 1989 introduction of
Lexus. Toyoda stepped down as chairman of Toyota in 1994 at the age of 81. ==Later years and death==