News Center: Faculty Spotlight

Rafael Moras

Problem solving is the name of the game for Rafael Moras, Ph.D. Within the Industrial Engineering department, Moras specializes in lean production—a problem solving technique uses mathematics as well as factoring in external causes and effects. Whether it’s lean production or the traditional statistical principles of Six Sigma, Moras teaches students what they need know in order to trouble shoot a production line in order to eliminate extra time, cost and waste. Because of his research and expertise, Moras is regularly called on by industry to consult and lead on–site company workshop training sessions. Companies that Moras has consulted include Rockwell Collins, Luxottica Group, Kimberly Clark de México and the Mexican Camber of Manufacturing. But as Moras is quick to point out lean production principles can also be used to non–manufacturing industries. He has also consulted the nation’s largest insurer, USAA, along with city governments.

Moras helps industries run leaner, but not meaner. At St. Mary’s all engineering students are required to take an ethics course. Moras has taken his professional ethics courses on the road and is frequently called on by companies to hold refresher ethic training sessions. Moras teams up with a philosophy professor to teach these courses at St. Mary’s and elsewhere.

On applying lean production principles ...
“Some of the solutions are mathematical, but others are just brutal common sense. Lean production is finding a continuous process of improvement, as opposed to looking for a drastic overnight solution. The analogy I like to use is ... a runner wants to chop off his time by half or full second. While the objective would be to run a race in zero seconds, that’s not going to happen. So if you run a race in 20 seconds a great improvement would be to go from 20 to 19 seconds. That’s what we try and do in industry. A tiny improvement can have monumental results.”

On Professional Ethics ...
“A lot of people realize that ethics is a part of business leaders, lawyers and medical doctors face ethical issues. But a lot of people don’t realize that engineers face ethical issues just as much.”

“My goal in teaching engineering ethics and giving seminars to industry to raise their awareness that engineering ethics is important. Engineering is a lot more than just the demand and science. We face ethical issues left and right. And like an onion, sometimes there are layers of ethical issues and one leads to the next and sometimes they have a major impact on future decisions. When you find the first issue, the first fork in the road where something went wrong, you find the implications down the road. It’s a snowball effect.”