Ashwin Ramachandran

Director of AI, Product & Transformation

Your factory is drowning in data.
I teach it to make decisions.

Every plant I walk into has the same expensive problem: sensors streaming, ERPs hoarding, dashboards glowing, and still nobody can answer the one question that matters this morning. That gap between data and decision? Closing it is my entire career.

$3.5MCOGS savings delivered
900Users on enterprise AI
3Promotions in 3 years
Let's Talk See the Work →
The DRIP Problem Live read
Data Rich signal in + Information Poor no read-out = $$$$ Lost every shift

I close this gap.

Measurable Outcomes

Numbers that survived the boardroom

Every metric here was validated by finance, presented to leadership, and tied to a P&L line item.

01 $3.5M

Five-year COGS savings from one connected-inventory platform across 200 sites and 1,500 connected containers

02 900 Users

Enterprise AI assistant in 4 languages. Response time halved, support spend down $400K/year

03 $54M

Greenfield facility built end-to-end. Customer lead time collapsed from 7 days to 1

04 ~$250M

Operation scope with a team of 12, driving product strategy and go-to-market

The Work

Three problems. One thread.

Data becomes information in three places: in the hands of people, in the flow of material, and at the machine itself. I have worked all three, in reverse order. Follow the thread down.

Product strategy, GTM & enterprise AI

AI for Productivity

9 platform modules · 4 languages

A field engineer in São Paulo needed a spec sheet at 6 AM. The answer existed somewhere in the system. Finding it took forty minutes. So we built the assistant that gave it back in seconds, then scaled it to 900 users in four languages.

Productivity AI only counts when it is adopted, governed, and priced. I own all three: the BRD, the rollout, and the P&L story leadership reads.

  • $3.5M in five-year COGS savings across 200 sites, 1,500 connected containers
  • Bounty pricing model built on measured customer savings, tied to the roadmap and BRD I authored
  • 900 users across English, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish. Response time down 50%
  • UX authority across all 9 platform modules, wireframed in Figma, reviewed with 4 product owners
  • $1.6M ARR plus $2.2M in connected-device subscription income

Digital transformation of operations

Supply Chain Digital Transformation

1,478 field assets audited · 2 months

One question, asked across a ~$250M operation: where is the material? Answering it honestly took inventory from 100 days to 45, added $1.5M/year in freight profitability, and closed a $35M data-integrity gap.

A connected supply chain is a change-management problem wearing a technology costume. I run both halves, and I get the change to stick.

  • Prosci certified. ADKAR plans with CEO, CDO, and GM sponsorship; 95%+ sustained tool adoption
  • AI governance first. RBAC/SSO inheritance, read-only data, no privileged actions, no cross-site access
  • +$1.5M/year from North America freight and inventory network redesign
  • $35M gap closed. Audited 1,478 field assets in two months via SQL root-cause analysis
  • 3 digital flagships established as global rollout template; support tickets down 37%
  • Team of 12 cross-functional reports including 4 product owners

Manufacturing excellence & greenfield

Shopfloor Automation

$54M greenfield · 15 engineers · 7 vendors

This is where it started, and where data is born. A $54M greenfield facility built end-to-end took customer lead time from 7 days to 1. CNC standardization lifted production 26% across 5 plants.

Lean, TPS, greenfield builds, robotics, defect reduction. This is why I can talk cycle time with a plant manager and architecture with a CDO in the same afternoon.

  • $54M greenfield sub-assembly facility for a global automotive OEM. 15 engineers, 7 vendors
  • $4.86M CAPEX program adding 100,000 units/year of lamination capacity
  • 12.24% productivity gain across 4 plants from pan-India defect-reduction program
  • Robotic work cell removing 7 man-hours/day ($48,920/year saved); alt-sourcing cut $212K/year

The Journey

From the shopfloor to the boardroom

The story reads backwards: I started where data is born, studied how to connect it, then commercialized the connection.

Act I · 2016 to 2020

The Shopfloor

Automotive Glass Manufacturer · Chennai, India

Built a $54M greenfield facility. Standardized CNC across 5 plants (+26% production). Three consecutive Best Kaizen awards. Learned that every digital transformation starts with understanding what happens at the machine.

Act II · 2020 to 2022

The Research Bridge

NC State University · Raleigh, NC

M.S. Industrial & Systems Engineering (Smart Manufacturing). Outstanding Master's Student of the Year. Published smart-factory research at SME NAMRC 50. Bridged the gap between shopfloor intuition and scalable architecture.

Act III · 2022 to present

Commercialization

Global Specialty-Chemicals Manufacturer · Memphis, TN

Three promotions in three years. Leading a team of 12 across a ~$250M North America operation. Owns product strategy and go-to-market for the connected inventory platform. Turned research into revenue.

Operating Principles

How I think about the work

Four rules I do not trade away, whatever the roadmap says.

Change management is product work.

Certified Prosci practitioner. Every rollout runs an ADKAR plan with executive sponsorship. If people do not use it, you did not ship it.

Governance before capability.

I defined strict AI boundaries (RBAC, SSO inheritance, read-only data, no privileged actions) before scaling to a single user. Trust is the product.

Build what you commercialize.

The architecture behind the inventory platform is the exact one I researched, published, and brought to revenue. I do not hand off what I do not understand.

Price to the P&L.

Bounty model built on measured savings. If the customer does not save, we do not charge. Alignment is not a slide. It is the pricing page.

  • SME NAMRC 50 Publication
  • Employee of the Year 2023
  • NC State Master's Student of the Year
  • Prosci Certified
  • M.S. ISE, NC State