Pranav Kumar Seerala

Experience

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  Carborundum Universal Limited

  May 2008 - Jul 2008

  Summer trainee (technical)

  PROJECT1: Optimization of cylindrical grinding parameters for CT995 product using the Taguchi approach• Designed two experiments using orthogonal arrays to estimate ideal grinding parameters for ceramic grinding• Performed analysis of variance (ANOVA) using Minitab to determine significant factors & interaction effects which governed the outcome of the grinding process• Drafted a report recommending a higher grinding cycle frequency that reduced finishing costs from 240 to 210 man-hours (12.5% decrease) every month, which was rated "outstanding‟ by my guidePROJECT2: Identification of alternate Binder system for CT 90 formulation• Undertook a detailed techno-commercial evaluation of available and experimental binders for alumina ceramics• Performed a wettability analysis of identified binders on the alumina powder using contact angle goniometer at IIT Madras• The experiments eliminated many possible binders reducing R&D cost by INR 20000 Show less

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  Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore

  Dec 2010 - Dec 2010

  Stochastic simulation of R&D process for optimizing capacities for pharmaceutical drug discovery

  • Generated a code in Matlab® to model the stochastic output of pharmaceutical drugs using heuristics with capacity constraints (physical & financial) at each stage of the drug discovery supply chain• Imbibed waiting, facility, processing and patent expiration costs into the simulation to predict the minimum projected revenue from each successful drug required for the firm's profitability• Proved that the 3-2-1 Heuristic performs the best in capacity constrained systems(Guide: Prof. Janat Shah, Dept. of Production and Operations Management) Show less

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  Department of Chemical Engg & Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto

  May 2012 - Jul 2012

  Research Assistant

  PROJECT1: Analysis of voltage recovery in carbon & molten salt super-capacitorsPROJECT2: ASPENPLUS® simulation of ammonia removal from Syngas [consulting project]

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  Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

  Aug 2012 - May 2013

  • Designed & fabricated the membrane electrode assembly and fuel reservoir for the direct methanol fuel cell • Conducted tutorial sessions and clarified doubts for a class of 95 students pursuing their second year

  • Integrated Masters Project - Fabrication of a passive direct methanol fuel cell

    Aug 2012 - May 2013

  • Teaching Assistant - Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

    Aug 2012 - Dec 2012
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  Centennial College

  Sept 2013 - Dec 2014

  Principal Investigator, Applied Research & Innovation Centre, Centennial College

  Lead Researcher for 2 projects with industry involvement.1. Conceptualization, design, due diligence, commissioning and analysis of the performance of a hybrid hydrogen IC engine and fuel cells system for power generation. The prototype will be developed with industrial partner ADMIRA DHES and is being funded by NSERC grants ($500,000).2. Design and fabrication of micro-hydraulic linear actuator with an integrated locking mechanism. The project also involved testing of this prototype in a hydraulic circuit, developed in collaboration with industry partner, Stema Punch and Die. Show less

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  MacDermid Performance Solutions

  Dec 2014 - Sept 2016

  Technical Service Representative

  Instrumental in launching production lines and process engineering consultant for 15+ metal finishing companies in northeast region of North America, growing the business by $1million in the region

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  Axalta Coating Systems

  Oct 2016 - Jun 2020

  Technical Service Representative at Honda Canada Mfg

  • Production programming of paint robots (ABB/FANUC) and paint process automation with PLC programs for Honda Civic and CRV bumper and body lines that make 1600 units/day. Grew business from 30% to 85% market share• Used Tableau to visualize and monitor paint rheology for production. Scaled this approach to all firms in Canada

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  The Six Semiconductor

  Jun 2020 - now

  • Founding software engineer (employee #10) leading development of verification test bench setup for post silicon bring-up of DDR chips, setup Gitlab CI and Ansible IT flows which reduced chip bring-up time by 85%• Led a team of 4 in the conceptualization, design and deployment of a bleeding-edge GUI named PHY Vision running on RTOS build of Raspberry Pi kernel. It is a cornerstone marketing asset for the firm• Pioneered development of low latency drivers for USB, SPI, JTAG, TCP/IP and I2C protocols using DMA, CPU cache and FTDI approaches. Implemented drivers in C, C++ and Python, showing 21x speedup in library.• Developed an internal chatbot for technical consultation using RAG based pipeline, with emphasis on reducing LLM model hallucinations. The chatbot ingests data from a datalake of OneNote and Confluence pages.• Lead Architect of data infrastructure (based on PostgreSQL) for 4 generations of PHY platforms• Spear headed company-wide deployment of migration tools for databases and software design reviews• Developed an auto suggestions plugin in Javascript to allow hardware engineers invoke registers with plain language within the IDE• Skilled in use of high speed mixed signal oscilloscopes, external clock-gen, VT testing, and ESD practices• Deployed active directory, regression pipelines for code quality/documentation and virtual machines to deploy micro services for a cluster of 100+ devices in the laboratory, running Windows and Linux based OS Show less

  • Senior Engineer

    May 2022 - now

  • Digital Design Engineer

    Jun 2020 - Apr 2022