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Meera ValliappanChief Operating Officer

Personal correspondence

Building the summer before it arrives

Chief Operating Officer India

I build the summer peak in the cooler months, so the hottest weeks do not decide our safety or our quality.

My first job taught me what a press tool does to a sheet of electrical steel, and what it can do to a hand. I joined Ilanchezhi Stampings in Coimbatore in July 1997, two months after completing an electrical and electronics engineering degree at Perunkovai College of Engineering. The company stamped laminations for motor and small-transformer makers. As a graduate trainee I sat with the tool-room foreman, learnt to read burr height and die wear, and spent many evenings on the second shift. The family that owned the business kept its presses running long hours, and I saw two injuries in my first three years. Both happened in the last hour of an extended shift. I had no authority to change the shift pattern, but I began keeping a notebook of when defects and incidents clustered.

A factory that sells into a short summer is always tempted to buy its peak with overtime, newly hired hands and bypassed guards. I would rather pay for the peak openly, in inventory, planning and permanent skills, and put that bill in front of the board. Whatever the plan leaves unpaid, the plant floor ends up paying instead.

Company revenue
₹1,940 Cr
Year ended March 2026
Plants run as one system
3
Coimbatore, Perundurai and Sanand
Fans with brushless motors
31%
Share of fan volume in 2025-26, up from 4 per cent in 2022

A seasonal factory has to build its summer in the cooler months, because the hottest weeks are when shortcuts in safety and quality look most affordable.

I am chief operating officer of Thenvayu Appliances Limited, a Coimbatore-headquartered maker of ceiling, pedestal and exhaust fans, room air coolers and storage water heaters. The company has been listed on the NSE and BSE since 2008, and the founding family holds 54 per cent. Revenue for the year ended March 2026 was ₹1,940 crore. I lead our three plants, at Coimbatore, Perundurai and Sanand, together with supply chain, quality, manufacturing engineering and safety. That is about 2,900 permanent colleagues and, at the summer peak, around 2,300 contract workers. I report to the managing director and present operations and safety to the board each quarter.

Nearly 60 per cent of our annual cooler volume and a third of our fan volume leaves the plants between February and May. For years we met that peak by adding a third shift and hundreds of short-term contract workers within a few weeks. The output arrived, and so did the injuries, the rework and the warranty claims. My view, formed first on a press-shop floor and later in supplier quality, is that the peak should be planned as an engineering and workforce problem rather than absorbed as overtime. I would rather argue about working capital in October than explain a hand injury in March.

Each decision described on this site cost something visible before it paid back. We built cooler stock from October and carried ₹96 crore of extra inventory at its highest point. We stopped every mechanical power press for eleven days after a contract worker was injured. We made brushless fan motors ourselves but bought their controller boards, and paid for that choice with a difficult first season of field returns. I describe what each one gave up as carefully as what it achieved, because a board needs both halves to judge an operating recommendation.

A two-shift summer for coolers

Building 2.6 lakh coolers between October and January kept the 2024 peak on two shifts. Peak contract headcount was 1,650 against 2,350 a year earlier, and first-pass yield on cooler lines held at 95.6 per cent.

Twenty-six presses guarded to one standard

After the 2022 injury, every mechanical press at Coimbatore and Perundurai received light curtains or two-hand controls with logged bypass keys. The ₹5.2 crore retrofit and eleven lost press days came before any recovery in output.

Brushless motors from 4 to 31 per cent of fans

Winding the motors in-house and buying the controllers avoided a ₹64 crore electronics line. Controller field returns of 2.8 per cent in the first months fell to 0.9 per cent after joint failure analysis with our partner.

Current focus

I am testing a postponement model for coolers: motors, pumps and bodies built and stored in the cooler months, with final assembly and colour held back until channel stock tells us which models are actually moving.

Conversations I welcome

I am open to one independent directorship on a listed or large unlisted manufacturing company outside consumer electricals, with about thirty days a year available, subject to my own board's consent and a full independence and conflict review. I am not seeking an executive move.

The leadership record

Trusted with consequential decisions.

In the boardroom

  • Thenvayu Motor Components Private LimitedNon-independent director, nominated by the parent · 2023–present

Formation

  • Bachelor of engineering, electrical and electronicsPerunkovai College of Engineering · 1997
  • Postgraduate diploma in operations management (part-time)Senkathir Institute of Management · 2005
Meera brought me the October build plan with the interest cost already calculated and the colour risk written beside it. She never asked me to believe early stock was free, which is exactly why I approved it.
Gokulnath SenthivelanManaging director and chief executive, Thenvayu Appliances Limited
The full record ↗

Contact

I am open to one independent directorship on a listed or large unlisted manufacturing company outside consumer electricals, with about thirty days a year available, subject to my own board's consent and a full independence and conflict review. I am not seeking an executive move.

  • Board appointments
Write to Meera Contact page