From reverse engineering to production success: My experience leading a China to India production transfer

When I look back on my career at Rosti, one project immediately comes to mind.

I am Tony Shen, Project Manager at Rosti China, and I’ve had the opportunity to lead many complex manufacturing programs. But overseeing the transfer of this customer’s production from China to India was unlike anything I have experienced before. It challenged not only my technical knowledge, but also my leadership, communication and ability to bring people together across countries, cultures and time zones.

At Rosti, every project presents opportunities to innovate, but this one pushed our entire team further than ever before. As project manager, I was responsible for coordinating product development in China while ensuring a seamless manufacturing transfer to our new facility in India. It wasn’t simply about relocating production. We had to reverse engineer an entire product, develop manufacturing capability from the ground up and launch production across two countries, all within an incredibly demanding timeframe.

Starting with a blank canvas

One of the first things that struck me about this project was how little information we had.

Unlike a typical product launch, our customer couldn’t provide complete design data. Instead, we received physical samples, but the available specifications didn’t fully match the products themselves. I remember thinking that before we could even begin planning production, we first had to understand exactly what we were trying to manufacture.

Our engineering team rose to the challenge by reverse engineering every detail using advanced scanning and validation techniques. Watching the team rebuild an entire product digitally from physical samples reminded me just how much expertise exists within Rosti.

The scale of the project quickly became apparent. With more than 250 bill of materials (BOM) components, it became one of the most complex products ever managed by Rosti China.

At the same time, we were preparing for production at two locations. While supporting manufacturing in Suzhou, we were also helping establish operations at our brand-new facility in Chennai, India. The factory itself was still being built while we were preparing for production, so in many ways we were creating both the product and the manufacturing environment at the same time.

Adding even more pressure, our customer had a fixed deadline after their existing supplier stopped production. From June to December 2025, we had just six months to complete what would normally take considerably longer.

There wasn’t much room for error.

Key milestones along the journey

The program began in January 2025 when we received the customer’s physical samples. That marked the start of an intensive reverse engineering program to recreate complete product designs without access to the original engineering data.

Over the following months, tooling, validation and qualification activities progressed simultaneously across Rosti China and our new Rosti India facility. Although the Chennai site was still under construction, both teams worked together closely to maintain momentum and solve problems as they arose.

Seeing the project gradually come together was incredibly rewarding. By December 2025, Rosti China successfully achieved Start of Production (SOP), qualifying 120 plastic tools and delivering all 250 components to specification. Two months later, in February 2026, Rosti India also reached SOP, completing the successful manufacturing transfer to a fully operational facility.

For me, those milestones represented much more than production dates, they were proof of what coordinated global teamwork can achieve.

The biggest challenge: Transferring more than production

Looking back, the biggest challenge wasn’t manufacturing.

It was people.

The product was completely new to our team in China, while our colleagues in Chennai were preparing to manufacture it for the very first time. They weren’t simply learning a new product, they were building an entirely new operation.

I quickly realised that success depended on far more than creating work instructions or transferring tooling. We needed to transfer experience, judgement and confidence.

That required constant communication and a willingness from everyone to learn from one another.

Building strong communication across countries

Working across China and India naturally introduced language and cultural differences.

At first, meetings sometimes took longer than expected because every team had different communication styles and ways of explaining technical issues. Rather than seeing that as a problem, I encouraged everyone to slow down, ask more questions and never assume that everyone interpreted information in the same way.

We increased the number of video meetings, shared more visual information and most importantly, spent time visiting each other’s sites.

Those face-to-face conversations made a huge difference. Once people knew each other personally, collaboration became much easier. Trust grew quickly, discussions became more open and problems were solved much faster.

For me, this reinforced an important lesson: successful global manufacturing always starts with strong relationships.

The hardest skills to transfer

Technical documentation can always be shared.

Experience cannot.

What proved far more difficult was helping newer teams develop the instincts that experienced manufacturing engineers build over many years.

The two capabilities that mattered most were recognising potential production risks before they became real problems and having the confidence to react quickly when unexpected challenges occurred.

Those skills don’t come from manuals. They come from working together, mentoring one another and creating an environment where people feel comfortable asking questions and sharing ideas.

My proudest moment

People often ask what I am most proud of about this project.

It isn’t that we delivered on time.

It’s seeing how two teams, located in different countries and coming from different backgrounds, genuinely became one team.

Throughout the project, everyone was willing to step outside their normal responsibilities. Engineers shared lessons learned openly, production teams discussed problems before they escalated and knowledge flowed continuously between China and India.

As a project manager, watching that culture develop was incredibly satisfying. By the end of the program, the project no longer felt like a transfer between two factories, it felt like one global team working towards the same goal.

One lesson every manufacturing engineer should remember

If there’s one lesson this project reinforced for me, it’s that complex manufacturing depends on strong processes.

When you’re managing products with hundreds of components, every detail matters. Clear process controls, effective part identification, in-process verification and visual marking systems are essential to prevent missing components, incorrect assembly and quality issues from reaching the customer.

Strong manufacturing processes don’t just improve quality, they give people confidence. And confident teams make better decisions.

Delivering manufacturing excellence across global operations

This project demonstrated what can be achieved when engineering expertise, collaboration and shared commitment come together.

By combining reverse engineering, precision injection moulding, structured knowledge transfer and close collaboration between Rosti China and Rosti India, we successfully delivered one of the most complex manufacturing transfer programs in Rosti’s history.

For me personally, this project changed the way I think about production transfers. Equipment, tooling and processes are all important, but they’re only part of the story. The real success comes from transferring knowledge, building capable teams and creating an environment where people trust each other enough to solve challenges together.

That is the lesson I will carry forward into every future project.

Looking for a trusted partner to support your next production transfer? Discover how Rosti helps customers deliver complex manufacturing projects with confidence.