“The in-station quality pillar [of the Lean system] is attributed to Sakichi Toyoda, who invented the first fully automated loom for making cloth. One of his many inventions along the way was a device that automatically stopped the loom when a single thread broke, which called attention to the problem so humans could fix it as quickly as possible. He called this ‘jidoka,’ a machine with human intelligence. These days it is often referred to as in-station quality—which means, don’t let a defect escape your station.” 

The Toyota Way 2nd Edition by Jeffrey K. Liker (McGraw Hill, 2021) p. xxi.

Note from Ray: The Toyota company began in the early 1900s when the founding family (Toyoda–spelled with a “d”) began manufacturing looms for making cloth.