Guest Speaker Profile:
TAKAHIRO TAGUCHI
Assistant Manager, MIRAI Project, Product Management Division
Toyota Motor Corporation

Guest speaker, Takahiro Taguchi, at Innovation & Organization's class on Jan 27, 2012, illustrated how Toyota improved its operations to meet the demands of increased volume and complexity of the market, and how the company in India rapidly expanded its operations and applied advanced management practices and did so with great success.

This guest speaker session followed Prof. Emi Osono's earlier presentation on the "kaizen," or incremental improvement, culture at Toyota. Its organizational passion for continuous, incremental improvements is all ready well-known all over the world. What is fascinating, however, is that this imbedded kaizen culture has not hindered the company from making radical organizational or product changes when such changes become necessary, as in the market situation in India and the case of its launch of the Scion in the U.S.