Ajay Serohi is an experienced supply chain management professional with more than 23 years of leadership experience in the area of adding value to logistics and supply chains. While he spent his initial years in the Army, serving in the combat zone, his later years saw him focus on the completion of some incredibly difficult missions.
These mainly involved the supply of materials and the establishment of supply chains in the Mountains of the Himalayas, with heights of up to 13,000 feet. Currently, he serves as the leader of the critical and the de-novo projects in one of the world’s most exclusive electronic mobility companies – Tesla.
He graduated from the prestigious Indian Military Academy, and then from the Defense Services Staff College in India. In order to formalize his education, he decided to join the Stanford University Graduate School, becoming only the second Indian Army Officer to ever graduate from the distinguished college. Here, he completed his education in supply chain management. He is also a Fellow at the Institute of Engineers in India, which is the highest ranking among the IEI Corporate Members category. It is given out to members based on their knowledge, their contribution and the experience of the individual based on the respective field of engineering that they choose after intense scrutiny by some of the most prolific individuals who serve on the board.
Ajay is also a member of the IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the world’s largest technical professional organization that is solely dedicated to the advancement of technology for the benefit of humanity. In fact, Ajay has also written a couple of scholarly articles in the Journal of Management.
During his posting in the Himalayas, Ajay was often called in for his expertise in order to minimize the time it took to repair IT services and for the provisioning of such services. The considerably long supply chain of the spares and the repair services needed had reduced the operational efficiency by a considerable margin of the fighting units, and the overhead costs had increased by almost 39%, along with timely costs. The terrain up there is incredibly rugged and difficult to navigate, so any solution had to be incredibly innovative.
With incredibly scarce resources and virtually no infrastructure to work with, Ajay was given an incredibly uphill task. To further compound the complexity and the difficulty of the project, the task had to be completed during the winter months. In the Central Himalayas, temperatures tend to fall under -20 degrees, and the already dangerous terrain would become so difficult that even the natives would avoid traversing on it. To get a better idea, let’s talk about supply chains in general first.
Every product or service you buy has gone through a lot of processes, which most are often unknown. Each of these processes are known as SCM (Supply Chain Management) or Supply Chain.
In other words, the supply chain encompasses a whole range of facilities and distribution methods seeking to obtain the raw material by the company, its transformation into useful products for society and the distribution of them to each of the consumers.
This supply chain is based on three stages:
SUPPLY: Which is based on how, when and where items that serve as raw material for the manufacture of a product are obtained.
MANUFACTURING: As its name implies, is based on converting all these raw materials into finished products, which will be useful for certain population.
DISTRIBUTION: This process ensures that the products reach the hands of consumers. How? Through a diversity of networks of distributors, retailers or businesses.
Ajay was among a handful of experts who were able to complete the project, setting up a repair center at the top, reducing the turnaround distance by almost 134 miles and saving a week in time. During his time at Siachen, the highest battlefield on this planet, Ajay provided engineering support to his unit.
Before winters, estimates have to be taken and spares have to be stocked, since all roads in Ladakh are closed during those winter months. Because the estimates are dynamic, the calculations need to be incredibly accurate and precise. A series of factors come into play, especially considering the fact that the altitude is around 13,000 feet, which means uncertain terrain and unpredictable weather are both major factors.
Ajay made use of commercial drones in order to supply electronic modules to the army units, which shortened the supply lines and saved quite a significant sum in costs, and also saved quite a few lives, ultimately making him one of the greatest project managers in the Military.
Ajay was also instrumental in the design and deployment of a 60,000 km OFC network to provide encryption and state of the art security to military communications in high altitude areas. This particular project is of critical importance to the Army, and Ajay was crucial in helping the forces move the equipment over rugged and difficult terrain.
With Tesla, Ajay has worked on some truly disruptive projects. The company has pioneered many firsts in the electronic mobility industry, and Ajay led development on a state of the art packaging system for all the high tech components. The packaging made the supply chain all the more transparent and also increased efficiency within the company, which ultimately led to improved movement of material logistics and helped ensure that orders were completed much more quickly.
Ajay also completed another very important project for the supply of parts and materials for the company’s Gigafactory in Reno to that in Shanghai. It was a massive project involving numerous cross-functional teams, but once again, Ajay’s experience and his superior understanding of logistical problems and how to solve them came into play.