Follow the felt into the work it must do next

I lead operations at Vazqeshi Technical Felts, based in Bhilwara with a second factory in Ajmer. Our enterprise employs 560 people and makes nonwoven felts for industrial cushioning and machine-contact applications. Company revenue was ₹204 crore and operating profit ₹16.8 crore for FY ending March 2026. My responsibility covers 400 operations colleagues through five heads, ₹94 crore annual operating expense and ₹7.2 crore separately approved capital expenditure. I report to CEO Rohit Nevthuli; quality head Mehul Qazravi reports to him independently.

My first major mistake as a plant manager concerned a dispatch group of 32 rolls in 2017. Eight did not meet the customer's agreed continuous-length requirement because of joins. I had supported the dispatch plan using the number of rolls and their total length as if those measures established usability. They did not. Reworking the affected group cost ₹41 lakh. The case still matters because the quantity account was internally tidy while the customer's next operation required a different description of what we had prepared.

Later decisions examined which edge trim could return to a reviewed recipe, why kilograms per hour do not describe the same area capacity across different product weights, which machines a pooled spare could support and whether an otherwise accepted roll would fit a customer's unwinder. These are operating questions that need technical and quality colleagues, not reasons for the COO to take over their authority. My job is to make the assumptions visible in the plan and to retain the costs and unfinished work when a convenient summary needs correction.

Current focus

I am making the production promise more specific about the conditions under which material becomes usable. That includes the continuous length inside a roll, the reviewed destination for recovered trim and the actual resource represented by an area-capacity calculation. I want operations, quality and commercial colleagues to agree on that account before a delivery or investment proposal becomes settled. A programme can improve the questions we ask while its benefits remain to be demonstrated; its approved budget should not be presented as the result.

Conversations I welcome

I would explore a first outside contribution where practical manufacturing judgement could complement a board's existing strengths. I have neither an outside appointment nor a personal holding in Vazqeshi. My fictional preparation has not yet reached IICA databank registration, and no assessment pass or exemption is claimed. An initial estimate of 23 days would need to be reconciled with executive duties, consent and the actual role before any appointment discussion progressed.