Toyota's first blue-collar executive aims to keep factory skills

Mitsuru Kawai is seven years past his retirement age of 60, but he has no intention of leaving Toyota anytime soon. In fact, his days have just become busier after he became the first blue-collar worker to rise to an executive position at Japan's biggest carmaker.

Breaking the glass ceiling at Toyota - where tradition still holds sway - is in itself a rare feat. But it is no coincidence that Akio Toyoda, the company's president, has turned to Mr Kawai at time when Toyota has become so big that it is now selling 10m vehicles per year. When Mr Kawai joined in 1966, Toyota made only 300,000 vehicles annually.

"We need to go back to basics," says Mr Kawai, pictured above.

With five decades spent on the factory floor, he is among the dwindling pool of employees who worked under both Eiji Toyoda, the company's late former head, and the renowned engineer Taiichi Ohno - the co-creators of the "Toyota Production System".

Though the system is now more famous for lean, just-in-time methods, Mr Kawai reminds us that people have always been at the centre of the "Toyota Way". Mr Ohno called it "automation with a human touch".

In his new role as senior managing officer, Mr Kawai oversees Toyota's factories to transfer his honed manufacturing skills to a growing number of young employees trained in the modern manufacturing age where robots and automation are the norm.

"Just as I was reaching the age of 60, I became worried about the risk of skills becoming lost in the age of rapid automation," says Mr Kawai.

Now, he is trying to build a manual line at factories across Toyota so workers can learn to make vehicle parts with their own hands. Knowing the process will then allow them to find the cause of defects and resolve them, the thinking runs, with the ultimate aim that corporate growth does not sacrifice quality.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation