Leading the shift from prototype to repeatable production.
I'm a senior manufacturing leader who builds the teams, NPI programs, and systems that take complex hardware from first prototype to high-yield volume — leading a two-country production footprint, owning new-product introduction end-to-end, shaping manufacturing strategy, and driving contract manufacturers and suppliers to deliver. Still close enough to the floor to know why the line actually behaves the way it does.
Process is where good design survives contact with reality.
Aseem Bhandari
I'm a senior manufacturing leader focused on new product introduction (NPI) and production scale-up — leading the teams and programs that carry complex hardware through the messy, high-leverage stretch between a working prototype and a line that ships thousands of good units a month.
These days that means leading people and programs as much as process: building and mentoring engineering teams, owning NPI programs across design, quality, and supply, setting manufacturing strategy for a two-plant, two-country operation, and managing the contract manufacturers and suppliers a ramp depends on — while staying hands-on enough to define assembly flows, qualify processes, and drive root-cause when it counts.
I've done this across very different hardware — optical transceiver assembly, lidar sensors, and electric-machine / PCB manufacturing — which taught me that the fundamentals travel: observe carefully, isolate variables, build the feedback loop, and grow the team that keeps it running before you scale the volume.
What I lead — and the depth behind it.
I lead the people, programs, and partners that turn a prototype into a shipping line — and I stay technical enough to know whether the plan will actually hold on the floor.
Team & People Leadership
Hiring, building, and mentoring engineering and technician teams — and setting the standards and habits that outlast any single person on the line.
NPI Program Ownership
Owning new-product introduction end-to-end across design, quality, supply, and the floor — from DFM through pilot to a qualified, ramping line.
Manufacturing Strategy
Shaping how and where product gets built: make-vs-buy, capacity and ramp planning, and the roadmap that carries a line from pilot to volume.
Supplier / CM Management
Leading contract manufacturers and suppliers to deliver — aligning process, quality, and traceability across partners you don't directly control.
SMT & Assembly Process
Print, place, and reflow process development, profiling, and qualification — plus final-assembly and integration flows for complex electromechanical product.
Yield & Root-Cause
Structured defect analysis, failure isolation, and corrective action — turning a noisy yield signal into a ranked, fixable list of causes.
Statistical Process Control
Putting processes under SPC — control charts, capability (Cp/Cpk) studies, and reaction plans that catch drift before it becomes scrap rather than after.
MES & Intelligent Data Systems
Building and deploying an end-to-end manufacturing execution system in production — work orders, shop-floor execution, quality records, and full serial-level traceability, connected to machines and test stations so the factory reports its own state in real time.
Scale-Up & Ramp
Moving from pilot to volume — capacity planning, line balancing, fixture and tooling readiness, and ramp risk management.
Scaling a line or building the team to do it?
Let's talk about your ramp, your NPI program, or the manufacturing org you need to stand up. Get in touch →
Selected work.
Three environments, one throughline: leading the people and process that get good hardware out the door, reliably — from hands-on process engineer to manufacturing leadership.
Leading manufacturing for next-generation air-core motors — building the team, owning NPI and process for a new PCB-stator line, and building an end-to-end MES, deployed in production across two factories, that runs the line on real-time, traceable quality data — with critical steps under SPC on top of it: control charts, capability studies, and a reaction plan per monitored characteristic.
NPI and production support for lidar sensor manufacturing — optical-mechanical assembly, alignment, and the process work behind reliable sensor yield.
Two tours, half a world apart — optical packaging process development in California, and NPI process engineering and international technology transfer in Thailand.
The reference check, in public.
Excerpts from LinkedIn recommendations — the full versions are on my profile.
"I highly recommend Aseem for his outstanding project management skills and extensive manufacturing and process engineering knowledge. During the transfer of the VLS-128 sensor manufacturing line … to the contract manufacturing partner in Thailand, Aseem's expertise was instrumental in ensuring the project's success."
Bradley Kolb — Vice President of Operations
"Aseem ran the advanced optical packaging lab at Fabrinet's Santa Clara location … Aseem's technical knowledge coupled with his management skills were greatly appreciated by our customers and the Fabrinet team … his talents … extend well beyond the cleanroom."
Sean Mitchell — VP of Customer Operations, Gather AI
"A skilled leader with a strong technical and manufacturing background … Aseem's people management skills fostered a positive work environment that encouraged open communication and effective problem-solving."
Alen Mekertichian — Production Manager
Tools for the floor.
Interactive calculators and guides — built to be useful on the line, not just to read. They implement the same capability, control-limit, and defect-routing methods as the SPC system and MES I built and deployed at Infinitum. Everything runs in your browser.
SPC & Capability Calculators →
Three floor-ready calculators — process capability (Cp / Cpk / Pp / Ppk), yield · DPMO · process sigma, and Gage R&R by the ANOVA method. Runs entirely in your browser.
Interactive toolPCB / SMT Defect Debugger →
A guided decision tree for diagnosing solder and assembly defects — pick the symptom, answer a follow-up, and route to the specific likely cause with check-and-fix steps.
Interactive toolNPI Readiness Checklist →
The questions worth answering before a pilot build — DFM, BOM, fixtures, test coverage, traceability, and exit criteria. Tracks your readiness and prints as a sign-off sheet.
From the floor.
Notes on manufacturing, process, and building data systems that engineers and operators actually use.
Why we built our own MES — and shipped it to two factories →
The build-vs-buy call behind an in-house manufacturing execution system — and why the hard parts were bilingual launch gates and floor trust, not code.
2026-08-10NPI · ProcessThe pilot build is a question, not a milestone →
A first pilot that only proves "we can build one" wastes most of its value. Treating the pilot as an experiment that answers whether the process is ready to scale.
2026-07-05Let's talk shop.
Working on an NPI ramp, a yield problem, or a process that needs to scale? Send a note.