Hardware Direction and AI Tools
The work
Rameez leads a team of more than 20 engineers across every hardware discipline, responsible for 80 SKUs that run from nozzles and valves to complex electro-mechanical products. A large part of the job is coaching: a product development philosophy built around faster iterations, and an understanding of supply chain, COGS and volume manufacturing that engineers carry into their own design decisions. That work supported the production ramp that multiplied revenue three times in a single year.
The rest is the connective tissue a growing company needs. He works with supply chain, manufacturing and the C-suite on product timelines and the reasoning behind each pivot, runs a weekly lessons-learned session so the engineering team learns across disciplines instead of in silos, and put ECO and change control board processes in place so design changes are transparent and on the record.
A hardware product development process built around EVT, DVT and PVT, running from discovery through release, procurement and sustaining. Each phase defines its key inputs, key outputs and what gets locked, from requirements and design architecture to interfaces, suppliers and cost targets, so engineering, manufacturing, supply chain and finance align on the same decision points.
Built a custom PLM tool to manage BOM, part number database, release, and change management process to accelerate engineering development with PCBA, SolidWorks import integrations + supply chain/manufacturing ordering/status updates.
The off-the-shelf PLM quoted $2,000 per user per year for read/write. Thirty hardware engineers needed it on day one, with the team planned to grow by half again the next year, and that is before supply chain and outside suppliers, who need the same data at $500 per user per year read-only. That is $115,000 a year, or $345,000 over three.
Build metrics
Blended yield, average build time, and a failure Pareto to aim corrective action at the right defect.
Manufacturing Build Dashboard
- Each order broken into its real operations (subassemblies, final assembly, flow test, static pressure), with independent status, technicians, and timeline. Answers what is happening right now without a standup.
- Forecast vs. reality: every finished good across 12 families, on-hand set against the quarter’s forecast, with shortfall computed per line. Turns a sales forecast into a build plan.
- Production planning and shop-floor tracking for a company running no ERP, PLM or MES.