The Controversy

The pages do not agree. They are linked below. The judgment stays with the reader.

Was he cruel?

Christoph Roser writes that Ohno did not match a polite stereotype. He writes that it is said Ohno was easier on workers than on managers, that he shouted, struck people, and set tasks that could not be done, and that this was usually aimed at managers. Roser also writes that coworkers were frightened and that some could not sleep. He records a nickname used into the early 1960s, the abominable Ohno system. ¹

That is one writer’s report of what people say. It is not a hearing. It is not excused here, and it is not condemned. The Hall of Fame’s honoree page does not describe his manner. ²

Did Toyota set him aside?

Roser writes that Ohno never became president or chairman, left in 1978 no higher than vice president, and then chaired Toyoda Gosei. Roser calls that a slight. He offers two explanations and does not close them. One is that Ohno talked about the system and so let private knowledge out. The other, which Roser says he finds more plausible, is that the manner made enemies who stopped the rise. Roser also writes that Toyota’s own publications seldom mention Ohno, and place him behind Sakichi and Kiichiro Toyoda. ¹

The Hall of Fame describes 1978 differently. He resigned, was named a senior manager, and stayed on as a consultant to the company until 1982. That page does not mention Toyoda Gosei. ²

Toyota’s production page, as read for this room, gives him a named place beside Eiji Toyoda. It does not say why he left. ³

Was it his alone?

The Hall of Fame’s opening says he conceived and launched the Toyota Production System. The same page says Just-in-Time was already the idea of Sakichi Toyoda and Kiichiro Toyoda. ²

Toyota’s page divides the work. Sakichi’s loom for jidoka. Kiichiro for Just-in-Time. Eiji for carrying both into practice. Ohno, with Eiji behind him, for the foundation and the Just-in-Time frame. ³

Roser writes that Ohno was not the only person behind the system, and that he was its main driver. He writes that Shigeo Shingo, among people with Toyota experience, soon had a large reputation in the United States. He does not split the system into portions on that page. A finer split is not added here. ¹

Did later lean hurt workers?

No page by a named critic of stress or pace in later Western lean was opened for this room. The charge is not argued, and it is not waved away. Roser does write that many later copies seem to him to miss what the system valued. That is his view of imitation, not a study of workers. ¹

The war years

The dates we have are about his job, not about a war. The Hall of Fame says he joined the loom works in 1932 and moved to the motor company in 1943. ²

No company page fetched for this room states what that motor company built for a military in those years. The sentence is left blank rather than filled from memory.