Growing up in a family-owned plastic industry, Vinoth Mani Balasubramani just couldn’t stay away from the world of manufacturing. As he grew older and vacationed during the summer at his family’s Chinnalapatty factory in Tamilnadu, his quest for better industrial practicing in manufacturing had obliviously instilled in him a sense of appreciation towards mechanical engineering. So much so that efforts by his mother, Jothi, who is a school principal, to educate her son had configured him for a “sandwich mechanical engineering” seat at one of the best colleges of Engineering: PSG Technology, India.

Although the trend during his college years was software engineering, Balasubramani knew for sure that mechanical industry is where he wanted to be. He worked with Bajaj Automotives in India as a manufacturing engineer, implementing cylinder head manufacturing cells and eliminating stand-alone systems by reducing the floor space within the units by 70 percent and improving the lead-time by 50 percent. To energize his interest in lean manufacturing Balasubramani completed a Master’s degree in industrial engineering from Wayne University. Today, after almost a decade, his belief and commitment to work has awarded him the ‘New Engineering Faces 2005’ and he is the first Indian to win this.

As an Industrial Engineer at General Motors, Balasubramani works on developing daily schedules for the whole Detroit plant. His job involves implementing innovative lean concepts to meet customer demands by eliminating overproduction, inventory, motion, and over-processing.