Introduction

 Toyota is one of the world's largest automobile manufacturers, selling

over 9 million models in 2006¹ on all five continents. A Top 10 Fortune
Global 500² enterprise, Toyota ranks among the world's leading global
corporations and is proud to be the most admired automaker³, an
achievement the company believes stems from its dedication to customer
satisfaction.Toyota has been shaped by a set of values and principles that
have their roots in the company's formative years in Japan.
The Toyota story begins in the late 19th century, when Sakichi Toyoda
invented Japan’s first power loom, which was to revolutionize the country’s
textile industry. In January 1918, Sakichi founded the Toyoda Spinning &
Weaving Company, and with the help of his son, Kiichiro Toyoda, he fulfilled
his lifelong dream of building an automatic loom in 1924. Two years later, he
established Toyoda Automatic Loom Works.
Like his father, Kiichiro was an innovator, and during his visits to Europe and
the U.S. in the 1920s, he became deeply interested in the nascent
automotive industry. Making the most of the £100,000 that Sakichi Toyoda
received for selling the patent rights of his automatic loom, Kiichiro laid the
foundations of Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), which was established in
1937. From looms to cars, the Toyota experience has been shaped by
extending the boundaries of manufacturing.
 
TOYOTA Motor Co., LTD.
As a large-sized sino-foreign joint venture, Tianjin FAW Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. (Chinese
name shortened to Tianjin FAW Toyota, and English name shortened to TFTM) is held
jointly by China FAW Group Corporation (FAW), Tianjin FAW XIALI Automobile Co., Ltd
in conjunction with Toyota Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor (China) Investment
Co., Ltd. under the approval of the Ministry of Commerce of the PRC , with a 50% to
50% share ratio. Founded in September 2003, TFTM occupies a floor area of 1.61
million m2 and boasts a current annual production capacity of 420,000 vehicles, of
which the leading products are “VIOS”, “COROLLA”, “CROWN” and “REIZ”. TFTM was
registered in the Tianjin Economic& Technological Development Zone with a registered
capital of RMB 3.3 billion Yuan, and now has a staff team of more than 10,000.

The predecessor of TFTM is Tianjin Toyota Motor Co., Ltd., which was founded in June
2000. In August 2002, China FAW Group signed a strategic cooperative agreement with
the Toyota Motor Corporation in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing; both parties set
a target for the cooperative project to occupy 10% of Chinese market share by the year
of 2010.

TFTM has three plants: the first one is located in Yangliuqing Town, Xiqing District of
Tianjin and the second one on the 9th Street of Tianjin Economic & Technological
Development Zone and the third one, which was put into production on May 28, 2007,
is close to the second plant, indicating the cooperation between FAW and Toyota to
enter a new phase.

TFTM sets up a self-characteristic management mechanism, putting high value on

talent fostering and examination system improvement, and learns and adopts Toyota’s
production mode actively. TFTM fully promotes Toyota’s global quality management
system with the aim of improving its quality in a stable way, to be the leader in China’s
car market by virtue of “high quality” based on the concept “Product quality originating
from each production process”.

TFTM has maintained a good tendency towards increasing production volume and fast
development in recent several consecutive years. TFTM has in total paid 2.7 billion RMB
taxes since its establishment, and facilitated more than 90 supporting enterprises to
have settled their business in Tianjin with more than 50,000 employees, driving the
local economic development with good effect.