Kiichiro Toyoda (1894-1952), son of sakichi-toyoda and founder of Toyota Motor Corporation. Kiichiro articulated the just-in-time vision: parts should arrive at each assembly station "just in time" for use, eliminating the need for large inventories. He set this as Toyota's production goal in the late 1930s, decades before taiichi-ohno made it operationally real. Kiichiro studied mechanical engineering and visited Ford and other American automakers, learning both what to emulate (flow production) and what to avoid (the rigidity and waste of massive batch operations). He founded toyota-motor-corporation as a division of toyoda-automatic-loom-works in 1933 (independent company 1937). The postwar economic crisis forced Kiichiro to resign as president in 1950 after a bitter labor dispute and layoffs — a traumatic event that shaped Toyota's subsequent commitment to employment security and the social contract with workers that underpins TPS. His career spans the early-toyota-and-wartime-1937-1950 era.