Chief Technology Officer / India
A smaller promise can be the stronger technical decision
- Materials and technology career
- 27 years
- First appointment July 1999
- Engineering and testing colleagues
- 62
- Five managers; quality reports separately to the CEO
- Annual engineering/testing expense
- ₹9.2 crore
- Separate ₹4.8 crore approved development capital
Decisions & consequences
01Narrowing a launch after the slurry pilot failed its criterion
The proposed wear-ceramic launch covered both dry mineral handling and a slurry application. Commercial colleagues wanted a broad introduction because the development work had generated interest in both. In the slurry pilot, seven of twenty-four assemblies failed the agreed criterion. A revised dry-application group had two failures among twenty-four, but the conditions and application differed. I refused to turn those counts into a single percentage improvement claim.
We funded a ₹1.2 crore examination programme and supported a narrower dry-application launch route through the qualified process. The slurry route remained unsuitable for introduction. Sales preferred to proceed with a qualification in the small print, arguing that customers would accept further development alongside delivery. I did not support that approach because the unresolved performance question was central to the intended use, rather than a minor limitation that a broad launch could carry quietly.
The decision gave up pursuit of ₹8.6 crore in indicative slurry enquiries at that point. Those enquiries were neither firm orders nor recognised revenue, and I kept that status clear in the investment account. The dry route also retained its own qualification and quality responsibilities; the two failures did not disappear because the wider slurry proposal had been declined. Quality head Mala Norsheli retained acceptance and release authority.
The result was a more specific product proposition, not a claim that we had solved every wear application. I wanted management to distinguish the evidence supporting introduction from the research still required. A future slurry programme would need its own justified brief and resources. The useful leadership decision was to preserve that boundary even when a larger launch would have been easier to market. Next time I would agree the application claims before the pilot plan, so that the development team could test the exact proposition management hoped to make.
Returning seven lots when composition did not answer provenance
A review of seventy-two received material lots found eighteen without the agreed evidence of process origin. The lots had composition information, which made the missing documentation seem less urgent to purchasing colleagues. Development and quality teams explained that the qualification account relied on a defined material history as well as a chemical result. I supported segregation and review rather than assume that one satisfactory type of evidence could replace another.
The alternative was to release the lots on composition results and seek the missing history later. That route would have protected the immediate production schedule, but it would have allowed the commercial pressure to decide which part of the qualification account mattered. We approved ₹54 lakh for the review, supplier work and supporting arrangements. The programme used specialist time and working space that had not been included in the original receipt plan.
Eleven of the eighteen lots were cleared through the authorised route. Seven were returned. The result did not establish that every lot from the supplier was unsuitable, nor did it imply that a material's geography determined its performance. The question concerned the agreed process-origin evidence for these particular lots. Quality head Mala Norsheli retained disposition, and the systems and purchasing records were updated to preserve the decision reached.
The programme showed why a technical requirement should be explained before it becomes a procurement checklist. If the buyer does not know which assumption the evidence supports, an apparently equivalent document can seem sufficient. I would involve purchasing earlier when a development programme changes the material-history requirements. That would not eliminate every missing record, but it would make the decision at receipt more intelligible. The seven returns and the review expense remain part of the account, rather than being hidden behind the eleven lots that eventually moved forward.
Funding production qualification beyond the laboratory result
A proposed production-loading arrangement was intended to support a wear-ceramic programme whose laboratory work had been encouraging. In a defined qualification group, six of thirty loads failed the applicable dimensional criterion. The development team could describe the material formulation, but that did not establish that the production arrangement around it was ready. I treated the failed group as a qualification question requiring resources, rather than ask manufacturing to absorb it as ordinary early variation.
The faster proposal was to continue with the existing fixtures and rely on increased sorting after production. Manufacturing colleagues argued for examining the loading arrangement itself. We funded ₹86 lakh for fixtures, loading work and associated qualification. The decision displaced other development activity and required additional preparation before the intended production route could be assessed. It did not include an instruction to change technical acceptance limits or bypass safe operating procedures.
A subsequent thirty-load group recorded two failures. Those remained subject to quality disposition. We reported the defined groups and the intervention, without claiming perfect manufacture or assuming that the observed difference would hold for every product and condition. Qualified specialists retained the detailed process decisions, examination methods and release authority. My role was to make the work part of the funded technology programme rather than leave it as an unfunded expectation after laboratory success.
The lesson was that a product-development account needs to include the route that will repeatedly make the product. A laboratory sample can establish something useful while leaving a different production question unanswered. Next time I would include the loading and fixture assumptions earlier in the programme brief. That would allow management to see their cost before a launch schedule depended on them. The eighty-six-lakh expenditure and the two residual failures are both necessary to understand the result; neither should be removed to make the programme appear simpler than it was.
Ending a decorative variant and reassigning the engineering effort
The decorative ceramic variant had spent ₹1.7 crore and was seeking approval for a ₹2.6 crore next stage. It had begun as a reasonable exploration of an adjacent use for our technical capability. By the next decision point, the work competed directly with industrial wear development and test-method needs that better fitted the company's intended position. I recommended closure rather than continue because the team had already invested effort and the earlier story remained attractive.
The programme sponsor argued that one more stage would make the earlier expenditure worthwhile. That was a serious argument about the remaining opportunity, but it could not be settled by the amount already spent. I asked the executive team to compare the proposed next work with the industrial programmes it would displace. CEO Farhad Qezvani supported the closure after reviewing that choice and the consequences for the engineering group.
Fourteen engineers were reassigned: nine to industrial wear development and five to test-method work. The account concerns those fourteen moves and does not make a wider employment claim. The ₹1.7 crore remained sunk. The proposed ₹2.6 crore was not approved and was not described as cash saved or profit earned. Technical learning and relevant records were retained under the appropriate ownership rather than discarded to make the closure appear final in every respect.
The result was a clearer commitment of scarce engineering capacity. It did not prove that the decorative opportunity could never succeed or that the original investigation had been foolish. I would make the conditions for continuation more explicit at the start of an adjacent programme, including the portfolio it must compete with at each stage. That would help a team distinguish a changed business choice from a judgement on the value of its work. Stopping responsibly requires an explanation of the next use of people and resources, alongside an honest account of what the business has already spent.