“TILOTTAMA SHRINIVASA” Locations
Monday
10:00 am
11:10 am
12:20 pm
1:30 pm
2:40 pm
3:50 pm
5:00 pm
Tuesday
10:00 am
11:10 am
12:20 pm
1:30 pm
2:40 pm
3:50 pm
Wednesday
11:00 am
12:10 pm
Thursday
11:00 am
12:05 pm
1:10 pm
2:15 pm
3:20 pm
4:25 pm
Friday
Not available
Saturday
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Sunday
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About Me
I have worked extensively on the structural analysis of machines using FEA, in diverse industries and across 3 continents. I have delivered solutions that involved iterative redesigning to meet requirements for stresses, vibrations, and shocks / transient behaviour.
I am very interested in engineering product development and innovation. I specialised in this and have designed various solutions for clients. I have also mentored numerous students and young engineers on product design and design thinking.
I have worked on appropriate technologies, for rural India, since my school days and am especially keen on promoting bioenergy for rural income generation.
Areas of Expertise
Product Design & Innovation, Structures, Finite Element Analysis, Entrepreneurship, Appropriate Technologies for Rural Areas, Sustainable Energy From Biofuels
Key Roles / Experience
- Engyana Consulting: Founding Director & CTO
- In addition to being with the company from the start, I also oversee the FEA and structural analysis group, the product design group, and the hydraulic transients group
- Altair Engineering: Consultant
- Worked on testing the documentation (to make sure it works as expected) on a new software
- HECTOR School of Engineering & Management: Program Consultant, South Asia
Education
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
Diplom (M.Sc.) in Mechanical Engineering
2004 – 2006
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering
1999 – 2004
Certifications
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Ambassadors Program, Indian School of Business (ISB), Mohali, 2021
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Program, Indian Institute of Management (IIMB), Bangalore, 2019
Areas of Projects worked in
Structures & Finite element analysis:
- Heavy industries
- Automotive industries
- Marine industries
Product design & Innovation:
- Redesign of existing large machines for altered operating conditions
- Innovative packaging design
Water Hammer Analysis Hydraulic transients in pipelines
Areas to help/ Specialization areas
- Design thinking, Product design, & Innovation
- Advice on analysing structures for strength, vibrations, failure modes etc.
- Finding suitable solutions for technology challenges in rural areas
- Energy from biofuels, especially TBOs, SVOs (oils) & biodiesel
- Advise on coping with day-to-day challenges as an entrepreneur in engineering
Number of Projects worked on: 50-100
Number of People helped: 75-100
Offered Services
Languages
Client Feedback
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Articles
TILOTTAMA SHRINIVASAExperience Matters
It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible. – Aristotle
My father (a professor of engineering himself) always had this quote on his desk. This is, in a way, the main “sutra” (key / core value) of all engineering!
Engineering isn’t an exact science. Very often there are no precise formulae that you can just apply and get results. Half the time one has to use empirically arrived at values / graphs, made by other people, to get an answer that might work. The other half of the time, one has to try it out oneself and use your knowledge and judgment to figure it out via the good old trial and error method.
Yes, there are simulations these days. But simulations and CAE are less expensive (and less dangerous) ways to do the empirical-trial-and-error parts. At the end of the day, the only truth is what happens in the testing phase. CAE tools, reduce the amount of testing time required.
It doesn’t make the entire process any more precise though.
So how does an engineer decide when the solution that she is proposing, is sufficient? There are of course standards to be followed and lots of excellent theoretical concepts to be learnt and applied.
But at the end of the day, what really makes a big difference, is experience!
With experience, one acquires an “engineering intuition” that tell you when something doesn’t look right.
There are countless stories of how big disasters were prevented because someone “sensed” that something was wrong. This “sense” comes from experience.
It doesn’t have to be a big disaster though. It could be a simple thumb rule, that saves you hours and hours of looking for answers. Or it could be a clever approximation, that is good enough for the job at hand. Or it could be knowing how fine or coarse the mesh / modelling should be, that saves days in computation time and resources!
Experience brings the polish: the confidence and understanding that comes from being in that field for decades.
If you have someone on the team, who has done it before, you are going to be that much faster, more efficient, and less likely to be wrong!
If you can talk to someone, who has worked on similar problems for a few decades, you are going to breeze through.
This is because, the experienced person, can tell you what steps to follow, whose help you should seek, what to do when things go wrong etc. And most importantly, they can tell you when to stop!
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash
TILOTTAMA SHRINIVASAThe Jatayu Code
Everyone needs a coach.
No matter how good you are, having someone knowledgeable to observe / listen to you, and point out where there is room for improvement, is very useful. We all know this.
What is even more important, but is often forgotten though, is the tremendous value of someone who can just point us in the right direction, when we need it the most!
MSMEs and Start-ups are usually started by people who excel in their fields**, because we are the ones with the confidence to try something extraordinary. We also usually have the expertise required (by ourselves or via long-term consultants / mentors) to easily tackle any of the usual issues that crop up in our domains.
But what happens when, as it happens from time-to-time, it is slightly outside our area of expertise?
In a big company, this is not a problem. One can always find someone in another department who knows, or one can saunter into any university with one’s brand name and get their attention.
What if one is a small company though? Being the ‘tech person’/ CTO there means we usually don’t have anyone senior to bounce ideas off or to just point us in the correct direction when we are stuck. And that is usually all that is required…
Just as what Shri Rama needed at that critical juncture was Jatayu, to tell him which way to go and what to expect. Without that critical information, the quest for Devi Sita would have been so much more difficult!
It is not that, given enough time and resources, we can’t figure out the path to the solution on our own. After all, a love for problem-solving is what brought most of us to engineering in the first place. But here again, being an MSME or a start-up means both time and resources are in short supply!
What is a more effective use of one’s time and energy? Spending days or weeks trying to establish contact with a top-consultant, who then expects a fat contract but may not even be the right person to advice you? Or spending days or weeks going round in circles, researching the solution (and maybe missing some crucial point that will lead to a big disaster later)? And all this while your business partners / employees are breathing down your neck, waiting for instructions on what to do, and maybe wondering if you are lazy or incompetent because you are taking so long to proceed.
And we have all faced this as tech entrepreneurs!
This is why we decided to try and create a system where everyone has quick and easy access to experienced experts. The experience part is the key when it comes to guiding people effectively.
Being great warriors in the fields of engineering & entrepreneurship, we already know how to fight our battles. But sometimes we need a Jatayu to point us in the correct direction!
*The title & the original idea for this post comes from a blog post with the same title by the wonderful Nandini Bahri-Dhanda, an interiors architect par excellence!**I stick to discussing engineering here, but it is applicable to most other fields as well.
Photo by Rohit Durbha on Unsplash