Mr. Surendra Murlidhar Vaidya is the Executive Vice President and Business Head of Godrej Aerospace, a unit of Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.
After graduating in Metallurgical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1983, Mr. Vaidya chose to work in India and started his career as a welding engineer and developed ASME ‘U’ stamp capable welding practice for pressure vessels, heat exchangers, reactors and then got into special processes like heat treatments, chemical processing for systems used in nuclear, defence and space organizations.
Mr. Vaidya has set up a new business in aerospace – Godrej Aerospace in 1985, which has achieved important standards including AS-9100, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, NADCAP and ISO27001 and has become one of the trusted suppliers of critical components and assemblies to aerospace primes like Boeing, Airbus, Safran, Eaton, Moog, GE and Rafael etc. Godrej Aerospace has about 25 unique process and technologies for aerospace and defence.
Mr. Vaidya and his team have also set up a Centre of Excellence for sheet metal brackets used in aircraft engines.
Mr. Vaidya cherishes the unique experience of development of Vikas Engine, Cryo engines, BrahMos sub-systems from scratch and developing not only manufacturing processes but also testing and accelerated acceptance test. According to him, bridging the gap between blue print to blue skies has become an enriching knowledge for him and his team.
A strong metallurgical background has helped Mr. Vaidya in developing welding techniques in almost all alloys used in industrial environment of Al, Ni, Cu, Fe, Ti, Co… and in varying thickness for aerospace, defence, oil and petroleum, chemical and fertilizers industry. He has unique experience in joining dissimilar metals with conventional arc welding processors, EB welding and non-conventional processes like friction welding and explosive cladding. MIG welding of aluminum up to 70mm thickness was a unique achievement.
Mr. Vaidya’s contribution to his field of work also include his expertise on electrochemical and chemical process for aerospace defence and chemical industries. Electro polishing of large reactors up to 4 meters diameter and 30 meters long without brush technique was developed and product ionised without help from any agency. His extensive work includes developing technology and simplifying work practices for Earth storable, cryogenic engines, missile engines, thrusters for satellites, BrahMos missiles and many parts/ sub-systems of aircrafts, and aircraft engines. Strategic development of aerospace as a product line and setting up an independent division from scratch i.e. infrastructure, team, systems, suppliers and customers and making this venture profitable with good product mix and long-term agreements and successfully providing vision for next 10 years is commendable.
Mr. Vaidya has many awards to his credit including Defense Technology Absorption Award – DRDO (2009 and 2018); TPM Excellence Award “Category A” JIPM, Japan (2013); The Best Industry Award from BrahMos (2013); Award for significant contribution and valuable support as an industry partner to meet the target of handing over of BrahMos Missiles System (2007); Award for excellence in Aerospace Indigenization – SIATI (2004). He has been awarded by the Aeronautical Society of India for development of Cryo Engine Technology for ISRO and also won Indira Engineering Excellence Awards as a symbol of excellence and a tribute to leadership in March 2009.