Ray Rannfeldt has worked in several positions supporting the design, development and manufacture of vehicles. From machine shop to drafting to facilities management, he has assumed responsibility for improving existing processes and developing new ones to meet various production and regulatory requirements.

Background

Early on, Ray worked at assembling industrial engines for Climax Engine Company. He worked at their foundry while attending college and then joined the U.S. Army. After receiving his B.S., he taught high school shop for two years.

At John Deere, Ray began in purchasing and rotated to supervise the stock room, machine shop and drafting departments. He spent some time as supervisor of remote test sites in the western U.S. as Chemical Manager, he established a facility Right-to-Know procedure. In facility engineering, he managed a variety of tasks.  From there, he assumed responsibility for purchasing of experimental parts and supervision of the stock room, weld shop and pattern shop.

At Diedrichs & Associates, Inc., Ray has assisted in shop administration and in building special machines for testing parts and assemblies.

In taking on various tasks, Ray has worked to add or improve processes and provide assistance and training to others.  Some examples are:

Facility Management
• Stock Room
   - Set up a computer and bar code system for control of inventory
• Machine Shop
   - Planned and executed new procedures for efficient use of outside services
• Drafting
   - Executed changes to move from a centralized drafting pool to dedicated groups assigned      to specific design teams
• Facility Planning
   - Designed and implemented an office renovation that included upgrades for over 1,000      engineering stations

At Diedrichs’ Experimental Shop
• Seat Display Machine
   - Managed build operation including purchase and receiving of parts and working with client      engineers to add new features or changes
• Test Stands
   - Managed the design and build of test stands to perform specific component test operations
   - Managed build operations, purchasing and design documentation
   - Worked with client engineers to achieve desired performance

Additional Information