97-J-14. Shimokawa, Koichi, Takahiro Fujimoto and Shinya Orihashi, "TQC and TPS at Toyota Motor Corporation: A Lecture by Masao Nemoto, Former Senior Managing Director of Toyota Motor Corporation", October 1997.

This paper is based on a lecture provided by Masao Nemoto, Former Senior Managing Director of Toyota Motor Corporation and former Chairman/President of Toyota Gosei Co., Ltd. in July 1997. Mr Nemoto is known as one of the leaders of Toyota's TQC activities (Total Quality Control) during its early stages. He points out that Toyota's manufacturing system consists of two main components - TQC and TPS (Toyota Production System: Just-in-Time and Jidoka are its two main components), and argues that Toyota's TQC emphasizes not only worker involvement (e.g., QC circles), but also education and initiatives of Top/Middle managers, Kaizen activities (continuous improvements) by supervisors, and involvement of parts suppliers. This lecture clarifies that Toyota's manufacturing competence comes from a complementary relations between TQC and TPS.