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Currently deploying @ Senior Material Europe · Sweden

I don't just
run operations.
I redesign them.

Operations Leadership · Process Transformation · Entrepreneur
0 People Led
0 Industries
0 Continents
🏆 Jobtech Award

Operations leader with a track record of transforming how complex organizations run. From European manufacturing to public sector technology — I bring structured thinking, data intelligence, and relentless execution to every challenge. Published researcher. Award-winning technologist. Founder.

See My Impact Exchange Ideas
Usama Safdar
Usama Safdar
Data Storyteller
Change Agent
Process Whisperer
02 — Operating Principles
"Factories have a language — data — and my job is to make sure everyone in the building speaks it fluently. Operations is no longer just about throughput. It's about intelligence."
PRINCIPLE 01
⚡
Data Before Gut

Every major operational decision — from scheduling to maintenance — should be informed by real-time data, not intuition alone. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.

PRINCIPLE 02
🤝
Machines Serve People

Technology's role in manufacturing is to amplify human capability, not replace human judgment. AI and automation should free operators to solve harder problems.

PRINCIPLE 03
🎯
Excellence Is a System

Sustainable operational improvement comes from building robust systems and culture — not firefighting. Kaizen is a philosophy, not a project.

03 — Transformation Canvas

Where I've moved the needle.

Three industries. Three fundamentally different challenges. One consistent approach: understand deeply, act decisively, measure everything.

⚡ European Battery Manufacturing
0+
engineers & operators led daily
The Challenge
Scaling Operations with Precision

Lead cross-functional production in a high-stakes battery separator facility — hit OEE targets, enforce IATF quality standards, and drive continuous improvement simultaneously.

What I Deployed

Daily OEE review cadences, digital shift reporting, structured problem-solving (8D), process standardization, IATF 16949 compliance frameworks, and team capability-building across 40+ people.

OEE Optimization IATF 16949 Production Scheduling Cross-functional Leadership
🏛️ Public Sector AI · Sweden
0%
classification accuracy (BERT model)
The Challenge
Automating National Job Intelligence

Arbetsförmedlingen needed to auto-classify millions of job ads across 4 dimensions — Education, Experience, Driving licence, Work type — for Sweden's national job portal Platsbanken.

What I Built

Designed and benchmarked 3 ML models: dictionary baseline, Support Vector Machine (89% accuracy), and fine-tuned BERT (90% accuracy). Published as research. Now improving search for millions of Swedish job seekers.

BERT / Transformers SVM · 89% accuracy NLP Pipeline Published Research
🏕️ Adventure Travel Tech · Pakistan
0+
bookings on platform built from zero
The Challenge
Building a Marketplace from $0

Pakistan's outdoor adventure industry had no trusted digital booking infrastructure — operators were unverified, pricing opaque, and booking friction enormous.

What I Created

Co-founded MakeAtour.pk — built the platform, created operator verification system, launched equipment rental marketplace, and engineered a 15-minute booking flow. Scaled to 1000+ bookings from zero.

0→1 Startup Marketplace Design 15-min Booking Flow Operator Verification
04 — Deployment History

Mission Log

A career built on taking complex operational challenges and building better systems — across manufacturing, public sector technology, and entrepreneurship.

  • Production Manager · SME
  • Operations Analyst · SME
  • Data Analyst · Arbetsförmedlingen
  • Co-Founder · MakeAtour.pk
⚡
Senior Material Europe
🇸🇪 Battery Separator Manufacturing · Eskilstuna, Sweden
Active
Production Manager
Dec 2024 — Present
  • Built and lead a cross-functional team of 40+ engineers, technicians, and operators — deliberately developing people from single-skill contributors into versatile, multi-functional shift assets
  • Drove production yield from 69% to 80%+ through structured root cause elimination, 8D problem-solving cycles, and process parameter discipline — a 16-point turnaround within the first year
  • Replaced 10+ manual workflows with digital systems — Power BI production dashboards, a custom Scrap Roll App, and automated FIFO tracking that turned paper-based guesswork into real-time floor intelligence
  • Maintained IATF 16949 compliance while driving ~60,000 SEK/month in process savings — proving that quality and cost discipline are not a trade-off
  • Spearhead factory expansion project planning and capacity scaling for growing EV battery demand
40+ Team Built Yield 69→80%+ 10+ Flows Digitised ~60K SEK/mo Saved
⚡
Senior Material Europe
🇸🇪 Battery Separator Manufacturing · Eskilstuna, Sweden
Completed
Operations Analyst
Nov 2023 — Nov 2024
  • Mapped production data and process parameters end-to-end — turning raw manufacturing noise into structured inefficiency maps that made the right problems impossible to ignore
  • Built the operational reporting infrastructure — dashboards and KPI systems — that gave management real-time production visibility and laid the data foundation for the transformation that followed
  • Drove ISO/IATF compliance audit preparation and closed corrective action loops — building a quality discipline that scaled beyond the audit cycle
  • Delivered lean manufacturing initiatives — SMED, 5S, and waste reduction — as hands-on projects, not just reports
Data Analytics Process Mapping Lean Manufacturing
🏛️
Arbetsförmedlingen
🇸🇪 Swedish Public Employment Agency
Published
Data Research Analyst
Dec 2021 — Jun 2022
  • Solved a real-world NLP problem: automatically classifying job ads across 4 dimensions — Education, Experience, Driving licence, and Work type
  • Designed, built, and benchmarked 3 ML models: Dictionary baseline → SVM (89%) → BERT (90%)
  • Implemented a keyword-filtering algorithm that significantly improved search relevance on Platsbanken — Sweden's national job portal used by millions monthly
  • Research published and contributed to Jobtech, the open data initiative driving Sweden's employment tech ecosystem — recognised with the Jobtech Development Award 2022
BERT NLP 90% Accuracy Published Research Millions of Users 🏆 Jobtech Award 2022
🏕️
MakeAtour.pk
🇵🇰 Adventure Travel Marketplace · Pakistan
Founded
Co-Founder
2017 — 2018
  • Co-founded Pakistan's first verified outdoor adventure booking platform — built from $0 to operational startup
  • Engineered a 15-minute booking flow with operator verification, activity listings, and equipment rental
  • Scaled to 1,000+ bookings across trekking, camping, and adventure tourism operators
  • Built and managed the technology stack, operator onboarding process, and customer experience end-to-end
  • Selected as Incubatee Winner at Plan9-PITB Tech Incubator — Pakistan's largest government-backed tech incubator (Arfa Tower, Lahore)
0→1 Startup 1000+ Bookings Platform Built 🏆 Plan9 Incubatee
05 — Operating Systems

The Command Center

Four interconnected capability stacks — the operating system I bring to every factory floor.

USAMA_OS · CAPABILITY_MATRIX_v3.0
ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE
⚙ Operations Architecture
09 MODULES
The factory floor
Lean / 5S / KaizenOEE & Performance KPIs8D / Root Cause AnalysisCapacity & Demand PlanningSupply Chain OperationsProduction SchedulingIATF 16949SMEDCross-functional Production
◈ Data & Intelligence
12 MODULES
The analytics layer
PythonSQLPower BIMachine LearningNLP / BERTPandas / SklearnStatistical AnalysisData VisualizationPredictive ModelingExcel / Power QueryProcess SimulationOperational Analytics
⬡ Transformation Toolkit
12 MODULES
How change lands
Process RedesignChange ManagementLean Six SigmaOperational ExcellenceERP / MES SystemsDigital ReportingAutomation StrategyPerformance ManagementSupply Chain OptimizationReverse LogisticsService OperationsContinuous Improvement
◎ Leadership OS
09 MODULES
How teams run
Cross-functional LeadershipOperations StrategyChange ManagementStakeholder ManagementTeam Capability BuildingDecision SupportScrum / AgilePMI MethodsOperational Excellence
06 — Transformation Framework

The Operations Transformation Roadmap

A universal framework for taking any operation from reactive to intelligent — applicable across manufacturing, supply chain, service operations, and logistics.

L0
Reactive DONE
Decisions driven by experience, not evidence. Processes documented on paper, issues addressed after they occur.
L1
Structured DONE
Basic digitization, standardized processes, KPI tracking. Data exists but lives in silos — the foundation for everything that follows.
L2
Connected DONE
Systems communicate with each other. Real-time visibility across operations. Data flows from execution layer to management layer.
L3
Analytical ACTIVE
Historical and predictive analytics shape decisions. Patterns become insights. Optimization shifts from reactive to proactive.
L4
Intelligent EMERGING · SEPO
AI surfaces anomalies, suggests actions, automates analysis. The organization starts to reason about itself in real time.
L5
Adaptive
Self-optimizing, closed-loop operations. Humans set direction and strategy; intelligent systems execute, monitor, and refine.
📊
Where I've Applied This

Operating at L3 in European manufacturing — predictive analytics now shape daily decisions — and with SEPO, L4 intelligence is already coming online: AI that surfaces anomalies, auto-generates 8D root-cause reports, and recommends the next action. The same framework applies whether you're running a factory, a service operation, or a logistics network.

TraditionalAutonomous
🔧
Tools of the Transformation
  • Digital Operations Reporting — Replacing paper processes with structured, real-time data capture
  • Performance Dashboards — Real-time visibility into KPIs across availability, throughput, and quality
  • Process Standardization — Creating repeatable, auditable operating procedures at scale
  • Predictive Analytics — ML models for failure prediction and demand sensing
  • Cross-system Integration — Connecting the execution layer to enterprise planning systems
🎯
Intelligence Opportunities
  • Anomaly detection that surfaces exceptions before they become failures
  • Demand-driven scheduling that optimizes throughput and resource utilization
  • Decision support tools that surface relevant historical patterns to operators
  • Root cause analysis using multi-variable correlation across process parameters
07 — Signal Intelligence

Research & Projects

Applied intelligence — from published NLP research to renewable energy forecasting. Every project is a proof of concept for what data can do in industrial contexts.

🧠
NLP · Published Research
Job Ad Classification System

Built and benchmarked three ML models for multi-label job advertisement classification at Sweden's national employment agency. Compared dictionary lookup, SVM, and fine-tuned BERT across 4 classification dimensions.

90%
BERT Accuracy
89%
SVM Accuracy
BERTSVMPythonNLPSklearnTransformers
⚡
Data Science · Energy
Renewable Energy Forecasting

Analysed Swedish energy market trends using predictive modeling to forecast wind power growth and its projected impact on Sweden's 2030 energy mix. Estimated cement requirements for wind turbine installations using industry benchmarks.

2030
Forecast Horizon
SE
Market Focus
PythonPredictive ModelingMatplotlibEnergy Research
🏕️
Startup · Platform Engineering
MakeAtour.pk — Adventure Marketplace

Co-founded and built Pakistan's first verified outdoor adventure booking platform. Created operator verification system, equipment rental marketplace, and frictionless booking flow. Scaled to 1000+ bookings from zero infrastructure.

1000+
Bookings
15min
Booking Flow
0→1 BuildMarketplace DesignProductGrowth
🏭
Operations Tech · Industry 4.0
Digital Production Reporting System

Designed and deployed a digital shift reporting framework to replace paper-based production logs — capturing real-time OEE data, downtime reasons, and quality metrics to enable data-driven daily management in battery manufacturing.

OEE
Primary KPI
L2
I4.0 Level
MESOEEDigital ReportingPower BIPython
08 — Featured Build

SEPO — Production Intelligence

A full-stack platform I designed and built end-to-end — turning raw factory MES data into real-time, action-driven intelligence for a battery-separator production line.

Live in production

SEPO doesn't just show the numbers — it investigates them. Built-in AI finds the root cause, auto-fills the 8D report, and assigns the next action to an owner.

I reverse-engineered an undocumented manufacturing execution system, mirrored it to the cloud through a self-healing pipeline, and built a bilingual analytics platform spanning ~17 production views. Its AI layer reads every batch as it happens — hunting root cause across the line and turning defects into structured 8D investigations. From slurry batch to packed pallet: one platform, zero blind spots.

  • AI root-cause engine — correlates defects across 10 process dimensions (machine, basefilm age, shift, customer…) and surfaces causes >2σ above baseline
  • One-click 8D reports — D1–D8 auto-filled from live data, plus an AI deep-analysis report exportable to PDF
  • Defect Pareto + machine heatmap ranks every defect each shift, with prioritised actions auto-assigned to owners
  • Self-learning knowledge base — every closed action with its root cause trains the next AI analysis
  • Full-chain barcode traceability — basefilm → coated roll → slit roll → box → pallet, sub-second
  • Live yield-vs-target, slurry batch tracking & shift accountability — no manual entry
8D
reports auto-filled D1–D8 by AI
10
process dimensions correlated for root cause
20
defect patterns recognised by the AI
5-hop
barcode traceability, sub-second
Next.js 15TypeScriptSupabase / PostgreSQLPythonETL PipelineRechartsAI / LLMi18n · EN/中文
09 — Academic Foundation

Built to Learn.

🎓
Master's of Applied Data Science
University of Gothenburg
🇸🇪 Gothenburg, Sweden · 2021 – 2023
💻
Bachelor's of Software Engineering
University of Gujrat
🇵🇰 Gujrat, Pakistan · 2015 – 2019
Certifications
VDA 6.3 Process Audit
Senior Material Europe · Trainer: Richard Feng
Jun 2025
VDA 6.5 Product Audit
Senior Material Europe · Trainer: Richard Feng
Jun 2025
Elementary Labour Law
Teknikföretagen (Swedish Engineering Employers)
2025
Predictive Project Management
Project Management Institute (PMI)
2023
Agile Project Management
Project Management Institute (PMI)
2023
Tableau Desktop Specialist
Tableau Software Services
2023
SQL for Data Analytics & Business Intelligence
Udemy
2021
Advanced Google Analytics
Google
2021
Community & Leadership
TEDx Lahore Chapter
Member · 2018 – Present
Göta International Committee (GIC)
Buddy Leader · University of Gothenburg · 2020
Business Incubation Centre
Tech Developer · University of Gujrat · 2016
Kalakar (Arts & Culture Society)
President · University of Gujrat · 2014 – 2016
🏆 Recognition
Jobtech Development Award

Awarded by Jobtech Development — Sweden's open employment technology initiative — for outstanding contribution to data-driven innovation in the Swedish job market ecosystem.

2022 · Sweden
🚀 Recognition
Plan9-PITB Incubatee Winner

Selected as incubatee at Plan9 — Pakistan's largest government-backed tech incubator, housed at Arfa Software Technology Park, Lahore. Awarded 6-month incubation for MakeAtour.pk's platform concept and market potential.

2017 · Lahore, Pakistan 🇵🇰
🌍
Languages
EnglishFull Professional
SwedishWorking Proficiency
Urdu / PunjabiNative
10 — The Intelligent Organization

Intelligent operations
aren't a future state.
They're an engineering choice.

By 2035, the most competitive organizations — in manufacturing, logistics, or service operations — will run as intelligent systems. AI surfaces exceptions instantly. Data makes patterns visible. Humans focus on strategy, not status updates. I'm working toward that future, one operation at a time.

🤖
Intelligent Operations

Every KPI tracked continuously, every anomaly surfaced instantly, every decision informed by real data — not memory or instinct.

🔗
Connected Systems

Equipment that reports its own health. Processes that flag their own exceptions. Leaders who receive insight before problems become crises.

📊
Data as Strategy

The organizations that win won't win on cost alone. They'll win on data quality, the speed of their learning loops, and their ability to act on signals others miss.

Let's Exchange Ideas
11 — Initiate Contact

Let's think together.

I'm always interested in exchanging ideas with people who care about how organizations run — and how to make them run better. Whether you're tackling a transformation, thinking about supply chain strategy, or curious about the same problems I'm working on — reach out.

💼
LinkedIn
linkedin.com/in/usamasafdar
→ 📧
Email
connect@usamasafdar.com
→ 🌐
Portfolio
usamasafdar.github.io
→
Topics I find fascinating

If any of these resonate with something you're working on or thinking about — let's have a proper conversation.

🔄
Reverse logistics & the circular economy
Most companies treat returns as cost. The smart ones are building a second revenue stream from them.
🔗
Data intelligence reshaping supply chain decisions
The spreadsheet era of supply chain is ending. What replaces it will separate the resilient from the reactive.
🤝
The human side of digital transformation
The tools are never the hard part. Getting 200 people to trust them — and change how they work — always is.
⚙️
Operational excellence beyond the factory floor
Lean wasn't invented for manufacturing alone. Most service operations just haven't applied it yet.
📊
Building analytics culture in non-digital organizations
The gap is rarely the data. It's the dozen managers who still trust gut feel over a dashboard — and why they do.
👋 Hey there!