In 1945 Taiichi Ohno became manager of Final Assembly in the Manufacturing Department of Toyota Motor Corporation, at this time of the 2nd World War Kiichiro Toyoda's system of Just in Time had collapsed and as a result Toyota has become completely inefficient.

Just-in-Time dictates that parts are delivered to the right part of the assembly line, at the right time and in the right amount. However, for this to work effectively, Ohno realised that quality must also be controlled; he understood that parts must be without flaws and defects must be eliminated prior to progression along the manufacturing line.

This realisation led to the beginnings of Jidoka. Ohno actively sought to re-implement Just-in-Time, but to do so he turned to an earlier invention of Sakichi Toyoda; a loom which would stop automatically when a thread broke. He realised if this self-regulation could be applied to machines in the car plant, product quality would improve, but also workers would be able to supervise multiple machines, therefore increasing efficiency.

At each worksite, groups were formed to find ways to rationalise operations working from Ohno's words, "eliminate muda, mura, muri completely." As a result of these discussions the Kanban system was implemented as a means of improving communication between processes and the andon system. The andon cord allowed workers to stop the entire production line if any complications arose, which added a human check to jidoka.

Andon boards also informed workers of the whereabouts and nature of the problem. Ohno was not concerned about the consequences of stopping the entire line, knowing that instant identification of the problem would lead to improvement of the processes in the long-term. In 1970, after years of experimentation and strenuous team efforts, the entire system, with all the innovations and improvements that had been added to it over the years, came to be known as the "Toyota Production System." It was a result of the spirit of kaizen (continuous improvement) which the plant workers shared and which the Toyota family continue to share globally.