We began our electric vehicle production using a lean approach.
Fifteen months ago, one of my denting technicians came into my small office in our 10,000 sq. ft. factory and said, "Sir, I can make car doors by hand." That was a lightbulb moment for me and a few others; it literally shook my beliefs.
If you’re in the automotive sector, you know that designing and producing car doors is one of the toughest jobs. The entire car’s shape depends on the design and curvature of the doors.
I thought, "If he can make the door, then we can make the whole car right here in Bangladesh.
However, there’s a challenge when relying on a technician—standardization. If a vehicle part can’t be standardized, it’s impossible to produce at scale.
So, I stuck to my engineering education. We designed a product with specific measurements, standards, and references.
We started with the vehicle chassis, conducting in-depth research, countless simulations, stress analysis, and finally, we succeeded.
For the cabin, we began with the side panels, roof, floor, firewall, and seats, eventually reaching the hardest part—the doors.
It took 14 days for my battle-tested engineers to design the doors. I’ll always remember how hard they worked. Sometimes I feel that even if I paid them millions of dollars, I still couldn’t repay them for their dedication. (Proud of you guys.)
Finally, we assigned that denting technician to make the door according to our design and standards after 12 months he gave me the ide. He did it.
Then we began production. The revolution started, and I didn’t stop production for a single day because I wanted to see the full cycle, record it, and then upgrade the production process.
Meanwhile, I hired engineers to design dies for the doors. Initially, making doors took 2 days; once the dies are completed, it will take just 2 minutes to make a door—a 1000% increase in production efficiency.
That’s our lean model. Gradually, we will make all the dies. Right now, we can produce 10 cars a month. Once all the dies are complete, producing 10 cars a day won’t be a problem.
One step at a time. Small but incremental growth.