Company

Team Member Profile

Ray Muscat

Ray's corporate career has spanned over 37 years with a variety of global experiences in the Automotive, Defense Electronics, Aerospace and Office Furniture industries. His experience includes engineering, manufacturing, program management, global manufacturing strategy development and execution, and the implementation of the Toyota Production System/Lean Manufacturing principles.

Ray's Lean journey began in 1996 at Herman Miller's Integrated Metal Technology subsidiary, where he worked with the Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC) in the transformation of the subsidiary to a world class sheet metal fabrication facility. He led the Lean transformation of the Herman-Miller organization globally from 2001 through 2015. Herman Miller is today considered one to the leading examples of the successful implementation and sustainment of Lean.

Currently Ray serves as the Industry Director for the Tauber Institute for Global Operations at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he is responsible for the development of industry partnerships with world class organizations who are interested in the development of the next generation of operations leaders.

Ray's corporate career began in 1978 at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn MI in their Automotive Assembly Division which included projects at several Ford assembly plants. In 1980, he joined Raytheon Company's Submarine Signal Division where he held a variety of manufacturing engineering and program management positions working on surface ship sonar programs. From 1984 – 1986 he worked at Ball Aerospace in Boulder CO developing manufacturing operations for military aircraft antennas. He joined Knoll-Shaw/Walker in Muskegon MI in 1986 and held the positions of Project Engineer, Product Engineering Manager and Director of Engineering – Midwest Operations.

Ray joined Herman Miller in 1991. He was responsible for engineering, new product development, operations management, corporate quality, mergers and acquisitions, and global facility strategy. Ray oversaw all new North American product launches in Operations from 2001-2015, and also researched the development of new materials and manufacturing processes for the factory of the future. His responsibilities included all North American facilities along with numerous facility construction projects, consolidations and upgrades internationally.

Ray serves on the University of Michigan Industrial and Operations Engineering Academic Advisory Board, and has served on the College of Engineering Alumni Society Board among others. Additionally, he has lectured and consulted on the application of Lean principles at the University of Michigan, Michigan Lean Consortium, Maryland World Class Consortia, American Manufacturing Strategies Summit and for State of Michigan employees.

Ray currently serves as Principal, Muscat Consulting, LLC, a Lean Manufacturing, Engineering and Operations consulting firm. He is a member of the OPS Board of Advisors and consults on OPS Lean transformation projects for industrial, healthcare, and government organizations.

Ray has a BSE in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the University of Rhode Island.