N.T. “Bala” Balakrishnan received his BS in Mechanical Engineering and MS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Indian Institute of Technology, India. He earned an MBA from UCLA, John Anderson Graduate School of Management
Balakrishnan is an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) and ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) Balakrishnan is Certified at Fellow level (CFPIM) by American Production and Inventory Control Society
Balakrishnan is active in ASQ and has made many presentations at ASQ local chapter dinner meetings on theory and practical applications on Cost of Quality, Process development in injection molding, Regression Analysis and Design of Experiments using Excel
Balakrishnan has participated as industry advisor since 2019 at Cal Poly chapter of NSF I Corps (National Science Foundation) and has assisted in innovation projects by Cal Poly student teams. Projects involved conceptualization to industry commercialization activities for innovative products and services
Balakrishnan has worked in industry for 40 years in a wide range of capacities as Manufacturing Manager and Quality Manager. He was instrumental in off shoring design and development of stainless-steel pressure transducers in India and on shoring military computational hardware systems in Northridge California after successful shut down of operations in Hong Kong and Taiwan
Balakrishnan has taught graduate and undergraduate classes in Management Science, MRP Systems, Operations Management and Business Statistics at Cal Poly Pomona for over 35 years.
