Non-Stop Shuttle Change Toyoda Automatic Loom, Type G

This is a complete automatic loom that Sakichi Toyoda spent his life endeavoring to invent and complete, setting it as his ultimate goal. The loom had the following features: an automatic shuttle changing device, whereby weft yarns are automatically replenished by changing the shuttle without reducing the speed during high-speed operation; an automatic stopping device, which stops the machine when a warp or weft yarn is broken to prevent defective products; and 25 automation, protection, safety and cleaning mechanisms and devices were added which were created with more than 50 of Sakichi’s inventions from his research and ideas, and passed complete commercial test operations covering integrated textile manufacturing in a large scale over a long period of time. Furthermore, productivity was increased by at least 20 times at a bounce and the fabric quality was revolutionarily enhanced by enabling tandem actions among such mechanisms and devices, offering the most sophisticated performance in the world.

Coincidentally, the timing came ahead of an amendment to the Factory Act (which prohibited women and children from working after midnight), as well as ‘measures for streamlining industrial management’, which was a global issue at that time, and the product was received with great expectations. The loom not only relieved the national crisis but also provided a considerable boost of the textile fabric business to the international level, thereby serving as part of the vanguard of industrial modernization in Japan.

This loom is the memorable first machine, significantly contributed to the growth of the textile industry in many countries, including the transfer of technical expertise to Platt Brothers & Company in Britain, constituting the foundation of the formation and growth of the Toyota Group.