In the modern era of the competitive industrial world, it might not be wrong to say that consultants are the pioneers of excellence across industries across the globe. They play the role of a fulcrum in the transformation journey of any organization by flexing themselves to the needs of the organization and still providing exceptional results without a crack. Irrespective of the geographical variations, consultants are the drivers of continual development in today’s industrial world. In this edition of iFaber – the official newsletter of Faber Infinite, we will peak into the life of our Faber of the Year for two consecutive years, Mr. Abhishek Pandey.

Early life and Background
Hailing from a small town in Orissa, our Faber of the Year holds a bachelors degree in electronics & instrumentation and has hands-on experience in different industries in various improvement projects. In his early career, he has worked for multiple manufacturing companies in the automobile sector.
From Good to Better………

Abhishek’s journey as a consultant is quite appealing and inspirational. While working as a Production Engineer, there were many instances when our Faber of the Year was not satisfied with the processes and found scope for improvement for better efficiency. Because of this, he represented his company in many change management initiatives in his early years which we believe is a very fascinating event for any tech-savvy person. This slowly increased his interest in consulting.

Abhishek is an expert in various lean and operation excellence tools. He is an expert in preparing operational excellence strategy and deploying the same for different sectors. He has experience in identifying opportunities, implementing the operational excellence tools and delivering excellent results across sectors. His skills have been utilized to improve and establish new business/ operations practices across several sectors. He has also led Organizational Design solutions and rollout for businesses across various sectors and geographies. He has been engaged as Transformation Program Lead.

He has training and consulting experience in Operations, Materials/ Logistics Management, Quality Management Systems, and LEAN. His expertise in methodologies like 360-degree transformation, LEAN and ability to apply it across industries leads to improvements and quality consulting engagements that generate high impact benefits for the client’s top line as well as bottom-line.

He has worked with clients across a range of industries including government or public sector project in India and Africa, Pharmaceutical, Engineering industries, service sector, Plastic industry, Process, automobile, Textile, Farm (Flower, Wheat & Barley) etc.

“Being a consultant, I feel there is much more to learn than being any other professional. In other jobs, an individual is limited to just one field, while a consultant goes on exploring multiple fields which helps him to learn and grow to the higher level”, says Abhishek.

Challenges – the other term for Consulting

When asked about challenges, Abhishek had quite a reply which showcased why he won Faber of the Year for two consecutive years. “First and foremost challenge that any consultant faces is building bond and accord with the team he has to work with. One can’t just impose things on the team members and expect results from the implementation. One has to bind the team together and move ahead with the entire team.” Moreover, there are some other challenges as well as understanding the technical aspects of various factors on gemba as well which a consultant enjoys solving with his zeal and passion.
Abhishek specializes in woven sack industry; however, he has worked in many other industries including plastic, chemical, engineering, trading, farm and many more.
Consultants are never off duty!

A consultant is never off duty and Abhishek avidly agrees with the statement. “A consultant is like a doctor in an organization who checks on the health of the workplace, finds the improvement areas and suggests methods to improve. The only difference is that he has to be more focused and involved with the patient than a real one.”
A consultant can let his thoughts run freely in any direction. Since he is linked with many industries, the scope for learning becomes manifold for a consultant. This is the key driving force that keeps the consultant on his toes to work and thrive even in a very hectic schedule.
Motivation, Inspiration and Achievements

As mentioned earlier, Abhishek has won the title of ‘Faber of the Year’ for two consecutive years and has been awarded as ‘Faber of the Month” multiple times. To achieve these, one has to constantly motivate and encourage themselves to stay on the top. When asked about what keeps him motivated, Abhishek replied, “I like creating big changes; changes that can actually shake the gemba for good. This really keeps me moving and helps me in doing better every day. Apart from this, I always thrive to add value to the client with my work since it is the client who is paying you to bring improvements in the organization. Feedbacks from the clients and support from the team actually pushes one in achieving something good, something concrete and undeniable.”

Abhishek is one of the senior consultants at Faber Infinite and has been involved in dozens of projects across various regions and has delivered exceptional results at the client sites. He is known as a team player and has received excellent feedback from almost all of the clients he has worked for.

Written & Compiled By Faber Kishlay & Faber Mayuri