Jasnoor Singh Khalsa
Operator, then consultant,
then founder.
Operator first. Consultant next. Founder last.
- InputRaw plant data1,336 delay entries
- LayerRanked signals6 leading, daily
- OutputRupee valueRs 12 Cr+ recoverable
Nine months in Hero Enterprise's Group CFO's Office.
I ran numbers, not opinions. Designed systems across the group, sat in rooms with CFOs of Reliance Jio Infocomm and Hindustan Unilever, and, beyond my original brief, walked a plant audit at Hero Steels because the opportunity to find something was there. The internship extended on the CFO's own recommendation.
One finding, named. Adopted by the CEO.
On the ground at Hero Steels. The finding was specific and unglamorous. The SAP PM maintenance module was on paper everywhere and in practice almost nowhere, because the interface was too heavy for the people expected to use it every shift. That gap was a primary driver of unplanned downtime. I presented it directly to CEO Jitendra Sharma. Recommendations were adopted.
Floor observation to CEO adoption, one week, one named finding.
- Day 1
Walked the shop floor with the maintenance leads. Watched how the SAP PM module was actually used, not how it was documented.
Five day plant audit - Day 2
Pulled adoption data across shifts. Near zero. The interface complexity was the story, not operator discipline.
Near zero SAP PM adoption - Day 3
Mapped the module gap directly to unplanned downtime categories. The correlation was clean.
Primary driver, unplanned downtime - Day 4
Drafted an interface simplification plan the maintenance team could adopt without a new system.
Zero new software - Day 5
Presented directly to Hero Steels CEO Jitendra Sharma. Recommendations adopted.
Adopted by the CEO
"The module was fine. The interface people had to actually use was not."
- Hero Enterprise
- Nine months in the Group CFO's Office. Capstone audit at Hero Steels, SAP PM interface finding adopted by CEO Jitendra Sharma.
- Zedral pilot
- One integrated steel facility, 180,000 MTPA. 65 datasets, 1,336 delay entries, 73 percent process. Phase 1 in execution, client confidential.
Same three moves, every time.
Categorise the problem with data. Structure the fix before you price it. Spend last, and prove it in weeks.
Minimum viable capital threshold. Below it, walk away is the disciplined answer.
- 34 page capital strategy shipped
- Investor conversations, PE secondary
- Wound down Dec 2024, on the number
Co-founded a venture targeting India's private equity secondary market. Executed a structured strategic pause after capital-viability analysis. Closed on evidence, not emotion.
The diagnostic had to survive contact with a plant manager.
Input is whatever the plant already has. DCS/PLC, MES, ERP, logs and Excel. Zero new hardware. Four sources land in one Zedral data lake. On top of it sit six intelligence modules — Shopfloor Digitization, OEE & Line Performance, Yield, Quality, Preventive Maintenance, Energy & ESG — each surfacing signals a shift supervisor can read in under a minute, updated daily.
Of what plants already capture never reaches the person who can act on it. That is the gap Zedral closes.
- Shopfloor DigitizationFoundationLogs, registers, DCS tags — one schema.
- OEE & Line PerformanceLayerAvailability × Performance × Quality, live.
- Yield IntelligenceLayerGive-away, rework, first-pass yield.
- Quality IntelligenceLayerDefect drivers, SPC, spec drift.
- Preventive MaintenanceLayerFailure signatures, MTBF, work orders.
- Energy & ESGLayerkWh per tonne, Scope 1–2 telemetry.
Then I built a company on one finding I could not put down.
Not a market research decision. A conviction call. I had already watched plant leadership act on a diagnostic once. Doing it a second time, on purpose, at scale, was the whole point.
One integrated steel facility, 180,000 MTPA, client confidential.
Sixty five datasets. Eleven months of records. 1,336 delay entries, categorised one by one. Seventy three percent of downtime traced to process, not equipment. Rs 12 Cr+ annualised recovery on the table, zero new capex. Plant leadership implemented it. Phase 1 in execution.
I built a company on one finding I could not put down. Not because market research demanded it, because I had already seen plant leadership act on it once.
I brought in Sreejan Datta as Co-Founder and COO because the diagnostic had to survive contact with a plant manager on day one. Ops discipline matters more than a demo.
Zedral's current engagement runs at one integrated steel facility, 180,000 MTPA, Phase 1 in execution. I do not name the client. The work speaks, quietly.
Same E-Cell habit that ran Sharda Launchpad and now runs the NFSU E-Cell as its President. Ship before you polish. Prove before you pitch.
One facility validated the thesis. Indian manufacturing has thousands. I am building for the next thousand, not the next demo.
Work the floor like an operator. Structure problems like a consultant. Commit like a founder.
I answer my own inbox.
If a plant of yours is running short of its own numbers, if you are building for Indian manufacturing, or if you back operators who ship before they pitch, write to me. I read every message myself, and I reply fast.