In the Toyota Production System, jidōka is written 自働化, not 自動化, the usual word for automation. Toyota calls it ninben no tsuita jidōka, automation with the person radical added to the character. It means automation with human wisdom added.
Toyota traces the idea to the automatic loom invented by Toyoda Sakichi. The loom did more than mechanize work once done by hand. It had a built-in device that let the machine judge good from bad. An article in the engineering news site MONOist sets the two side by side: stopping when a thread breaks, and stopping when anything is abnormal.