Nothing should go to waste – this was the strict credo of Sakichi Toyoda, who invented the automatic loom in 1902. By developing this principle, his son, Kiichirō Toyoda, was able to spur the growth of his country’s nascent automotive industry despite the scarcity of raw materials in Japan during the 1930s and 1940s. But it was Toyota production engineer and inventor Taiichi Ohno who ultimately made Toyota’s big breakthrough.

By the 1950s, the company was still reporting a loss and was unable to make any major investments. Nevertheless, it was desperate to catch up with the competition. Ohno was sent to the United States in 1956 to see what he could learn. He did indeed find inspiration there, but not from visiting places like the Ford Motor Company’s production facilities. In fact, the light-bulb moment occurred in the far more banal surroundings of a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. Ohno was intrigued by the way that large quantities of stock were displayed on the shelves so that customers could simply take as many of the desired item as they wished. There were hardly any self-service stores like this in 1950s Japan. He also noticed that restocking occurred rapidly and exactly reflected what had been sold; there were no empty or crammed shelves. He brought this concept back to Japan, where it became a pillar of the Toyota Production System. The idea was that everything should flow seamlessly, nothing should lie around unused, no-one should stand around idly, and the right amount of goods should always be delivered to the right place at the right time. The “Just-in-Time” principle was born and would subsequently return to the United States in the guise of lean manufacturing.