History of Toyota
From Looms to Automobiles: Toyota’s Foundations

The origins of Toyota Motor Corporation trace back to the innovations of Sakichi Toyoda, a Japanese inventor and industrialist born in 1867 in Kosai, Shizuoka. Known as the "King of Japanese Inventors," Sakichi revolutionized Japan's textile industry with his invention of the Toyoda wooden handloom in 1894 and the Toyoda Automatic Loom in 1924. This loom introduced the principle of Jidoka (autonomous automation), enabling machines to stop automatically when a problem occurred—a concept later central to the Toyota Production System.
In 1929, Sakichi sold the patent rights for his automatic loom to a British company, generating funds to explore automobile manufacturing. His establishment of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works in 1926 laid the groundwork for the industrial ventures that eventually led his son, Kiichiro Toyoda, to found Toyota Motor Corporation. Sakichi also developed the 5 Whys methodology, a problem-solving approach still used in lean manufacturing practices.