Arvind Chari Email & Phone Number

Menlo Park, Ca, Us

San Francisco Bay Area

- Program manager coordinating projects aimed at fully ramping the world's largest commercial indoor farm to full production and profitability - Responsible for preparing and delivering updates on progress to senior leadership and the board- Facilitator in meetings focused on the PnL, strategic ramp, and SKU portfolio of the farm to maximize speed to ramp and gross margin- Manage the Sustaining Engineering group, focused on Continuous Improvement of the Compton Facility, and the operational design feedback and set up for future farm builds

- Manage the Sales and Operations Planning group for the company, coordinating the sales requirements against the seed -> harvest process in the farm- Coded software to enable production and sales teams to align on required packout of SKUs per day, taking into account internal shelf life and first in first out warehouse practices- Created the function, then hired and ran the production planning group for the company for all sites- Managed Plenty's Quality Control group, assisting in the building of the team structure and documentation enabling Plenty to become one of the first indoor food facilities to pass SQF audit

- Manager of Plenty’s first high volume manufacturing facility, guiding ramp from the phase of machine installation to ramped capacity- Created the production team structure including sanitation, quality, production, and maintenance; interviewing and hiring the supervisors, leads, and associate team members in the 60+ person group- Developed comprehensive metric dashboards (SQDIP) for farm performance, ensuring transparent reporting from associates and managers up to the executive levels- Built Plenty’s first sanitation program and checklists, setting the foundation for program which has now scaled to Plenty’s design template for all future farms- Compiled and maintained the first version of the full Build of Materials (BOM), implementing a cross-departmental change control process ensuring accuracy and safety around any new material introductions

- Developed initial production process and scaled it to 6 million units/year; core member of team responsible for acquisition by Ayala Corp in Feb 2018- Managed the hiring, training, and productivity of 55 workers at contract manufacturer (CM) in Thailand- Recruited and managed sustaining engineering team of 6 to effectively ramp facility output by over 1000%- Effectively leveraged factory’s unused warehouse space, allowing key supply-chain vendors to create a distribution center in exchange for lower pricing and better payment options- Authored 6 key patents core to Merlin’s technology; trademarked international packaging

- Traveled to equipment manufacturer in Europe (Besi Meco) to design high volume tool implementation of the bench process developed in San Jose- Documented criteria and performed Acceptance testing on the tool both at the vendor and at final facility in Thailand to buy off of the machines- Traveled to Singapore to collaborate with chemical supplier to 10x the copper electroplating speed and reduce the wasted chemical material in the process- Coded real-time analysis platform (using Python/SQL) enabling global management to monitor production line process metrics and rapidly respond to production trends

- Developed first version of the metal grid technology using small scale electroforming techniques developed in a lab in San Jose, CA

- Developed the Chemical Vapor Deposition parameters necessary to optimize the efficiency of Twin Creeks super thin crystalline silicon cells- Transferred the pilot production of the Chemical Vapor Deposition process from San Jose, CA to the Senatobia, MS high volume facility - Member of the moonshot projects team, resulting in two patent awards with cross industry appeal

San Carlos, California, United States

San Jose, California, United States

Master Of Engineering - Meng, Materials Science

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Materials Science