The work, with the numbers

Farm automation: 46 months to 4 months

A farm automation product had been in development for 46 months and would break down during trials, never running for more than five minutes. I led the team that found the real problem and had it working in 4 months. The breakdown problem was resolved and it then ran for over half an hour without stopping.

The version we built was also 60% lighter.

Kneading dough: proven in 15 days

Kneading dough to hand-kneaded quality, against a 1-month deadline that the directors and the board did not believe was possible. My team built and tested 6 concepts and proved the winner in 15 days. It cut operation time by 67%.

Cutting vegetables: 36 concepts, 2 to 16 outputs

Cutting a vegetable to any required size at speed. My team generated 36 concepts. The winner was the 12th iteration of the 35th concept. It raised the number of outputs from 2 to 16 and reached 90% cutting effectiveness, functionally proven in 6 months.

Prototype spend on that work stayed under Rs 50,000 a month.

The record

13+ years of experience. 9+ years in innovation. 39+ innovations across six domains: farm automation, food automation, industrial machinery, automotive, high-end cycling and sports broadcasting.

Where the method made no real difference

Not every project ends in a number worth showing.

One product I worked on was a simple dispensing mechanism, with nothing complicated about how it worked. We moved fast, but there was no significant result, and it ended as a me-too product.

What it taught me: if you are building a product exactly like someone else's, with nothing more valuable in it, this process cannot generate new learnings worth the time and effort you invest.