Michael Kuhrau

Born in West Berlin in the late 1950s, Michael was introduced to engineering by helping his father with household repairs and building rockets and RC airplanes. After attending the Technische Fachhochschule, a university focusing on engineering sciences, Michael began working for Siemens as a design engineer. There, he was awarded his first patent in 1985.

Starting at B. Braun, a pharmaceutical company in 1985, Michael was introduced to manufacturing concepts through REFA training. He then implemented concepts that would later inform LEAN to take B. Braun from losing millions of Marks to profitability in one year. One of the big improvements made was the introduction of a new pay system that allowed a more flexible work schedule. This improvement had to be negotiated with the labor unions, and the deal made was the first of its kind to be approved by the unions in Germany. Michael also designed a custom machine to visualize the viability of medicine in ampules by quality testing using fluorescence. This required building the custom machine using a custom spectrometer, and testing by the government for approval. The machine went head-to-head with a human and had to be at least as good as the human eye. The machine won.

Michael discovered the job at Mayer Industries in Orangeburg, South Carolina in a German newspaper. He was looking every weekend in the job listings and selected three to apply to. Initially tossed with the rest of the listings, Michael changed his mind and decided to apply to a fourth job. Mayer Industries wanted a German engineer to take over at the plant in South Carolina and selected Michael for the job. With no English and his wife and daughter, he moved to Orangeburg, South Carolina. It took 6 months for him to learn English on the job. Michael's experience at Mayer included several patents for circular knitting machine improvements and the installation of a 150ft long machine requiring a massive overhaul of the foundation.

During the 2000s, Michael had a variety of experiences including business ownership with the purchase of Formix Riddle. As Program Manager for Apex Tool Group, Michael enjoyed traveling to customers in the US, Germany, France, China, and Taiwan.

Michael retired from Ubisense in December of 2022 on a very high note, having run the most profitable Delivery Team at Ubisense. During his last year and a half at Ubisense, Michael was also able to work with his son, Dominic, who joined the Delivery Team in 2021.

Michael says his whole career was about improving manufacturing processes and developing businesses.