97-J-4. Fujimoto, Takahiro and Koichi Shimokawa, "An Interview with Taiichi Ohno, July 16, 1984", April 1997.

This paper is a memo of an interview with Taiichi Ohno, known as the creator of so-called Toyota Production System (TPS). The interview was conducted by the authors for about three hours on July 16, 1984 at the headquarters of Toyota Gosei (a Toyota group parts supplier at which Mr. Ohno was an advisor). The interview includes the following: Ohno's prewar experience at Toyota Spinning and Weaving (Toyota Boshoku); post-war productivity growth; the 1950 crisis and the philosophy of "limited volume production" ( genryo seisan); work standardization; production levelization (heijunka); product flow layout and multi-skilled workers (tano-ko); productivity growth after the Korea War period; introduction of kanban system; quality control; and jidoka (automatic machine-stop mechanism).