Topic > A Summer Internship Experience at Philip Morris International

Index IntroductionInternship Company DescriptionOptimizing Operator Workload in Filter FactoryProblem StatementTools Used During My InternshipWorks CitedIntroductionI did my internship at Philip Morris International for 20 days. During my internship I worked in the production department. As an intern, my task was to work on a project focused on optimizing the operator's workload in the Filter Factory. PMI has started implementing an integrated operating system, OPEN+, for all its subsidiaries, and the factory where I interned, PhilSA, is one of the leading companies in this implementation. There are many tools in OPEN+ and all of these tools take some time. My project aimed to answer the following question; it is possible to apply all these tools for operators, during my summer internship experience I tried to find an answer to this question. I can divide my internship into three phases; the first phase is the learning phase, in this phase I tried to learn a working system of PhilSA and OPEN+. The second phase is information collection; this information is numerical data and verbal information from operators. The third and final phase consists of optimizing the system and running a simulation of it. I will describe all these phases in the subsequent parts of my internship report. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The tools I used during my internship were MS Excel, MS Project, and Arena Simulation. Additionally, there were some internal tools for SMEs such as SPA (Secondary Performance Application), LES (Logistics Execution System) and MES (Manufacturing Execution System). During my internship, MS Excel was the main tool that I used especially in the data collection part. MS Project and Arena Simulation were important tools for the optimization part, in addition to the mathematical calculations I used MS Project to optimize the operators' workload. After the calculations, I used Arena Simulation to simulate the optimized system before running a field simulation. PMI's internal tools were new to me and in the first days of my internship I try to learn all these internal tools because they were necessary for my project. In particular, SPA played a crucial role as I studied the machines' past trends on performance KPIs. During my internship, I used all the optimization techniques - linear, nonlinear and integer - that I learned at university. Furthermore, I had the chance to learn a well-developed integrated operating system, OPEN+. In the following parts of my internship report, I will explain all these tools and techniques in detail. Furthermore, I will explain my project in detail with its results. Stage Company Description Philip Morris International was founded by Philip Morris in London, England in 1847. In 1881, Leopard Morris founded Philip Morris & Company and Grunebaum Ltd. with Joseph Grunebaum. In 1885 the company changed its name to Philip Morris & Co. Ltd. In 1902 the company moved to New York. In 1987, Philip Morris International (PMI) was incorporated in New York, USA, and then moved its operations center to Lausanne, Switzerland in 2001. In 2003, Philip Morris Companies Inc. formally changed its name to Altria Group, and in 2008 Philip Morris Companies Inc. Morris International was spun off from Altria. Philip Morris International is a leading international tobacco company, with 77,000 employees worldwide. The company has 46manufacturing facilities around the world and its products are sold in over 180 markets. The company owns six of the world's top 15 international brands, and PMI's flagship brand is Marlboro. Marlboro has been the number one international cigarette brand in the world since 1972; the brand is one of the most well-known brands among all consumer products. Other Philip Morris International brands sold internationally include Parliament, Virginia S., L&M, Lark, Merit, Muratti, Philip Morris, Bond Street, Chesterfield, Next, Red &White. The company also owns some local cigarette brands; Dji Sam Soe, Sampoerna A and Sampoerna U in Indonesia; Luck and Jackpots in the Philippines; Belmont and Canadian Classics in Canada and Delicados in Mexico. Philip Morris International also offers smoke-free products and wants to replace all of its products with smoke-free products in the future. PMI's anti-smoking product portfolio contains four products in various stages of development. The first of these products is IQOS, a heated tobacco system, available on the market. The key point about IQOS is that the tobacco in cigarettes burns at 600°C and this temperature produces smoke which contains high levels of harmful chemicals. But IQOS heats tobacco to 350°C without combustion, ash, smoke or fire, and because there is no burning tobacco, levels of harmful chemicals are reduced compared to cigarette smoke. The other smoke-free products are TEEPS, MESH and STEEM; these products are still under development and are not available on the markets. Philip Morris International's Turkish branch in Türkiye splits into two companies; PMSA and PhilSA. PhilSA was founded in 1991 as a 75/25 manufacturing joint venture between Philip Morris International and Sabancı Holding. The Izmir factory was established in 1991 and today, with over 1,200 employees, produces 250 different cigarette products for the domestic market and export markets. PhilSA is the largest cigarette factory in the world by production capacity. PMSA was founded in 1994 as a 75/25 joint venture between Philip Morris International and Sabancı Holding. The company is responsible for the national distribution and sales operations of Philip Morris cigarette brands. The company has one of the largest sales networks in Türkiye with around 1,900 people. The PMSA distribution network serves over 140,000 outlets in 81 cities across Turkey. During my internship I worked at Filter Factory, a sub-branch of the production department. PhilSA has 5 different establishments in its site; Primary, Filter, Medium Speed, Seal and High Speed. The operations carried out in these factories are as follows; in Primary, tobacco leaves processed to produce cigarettes; in Filter, production of cigarette filters; in medium-speed, high-speed and sealing cigarette production and packaging processes. Mid-Speed ​​and High-Speed ​​are factories that perform the same process with machines at different speeds. Seal Factory produces cigarettes and packages them in sealed packages. My department, Filter Factory, was founded in 1992 with the factory but is included among the cigarette manufacturing factories. In 2017, Filter Factory left the cigarette manufacturing facilities and established a factory on the same site. Optimizing Operator Workload in Filter FactoryProblem StatementIn 2008, Philip Morris International decided to change its integrated operating system to a new one called OPEN+. This system was created by one of the largest FMCG companies in the world, P&G, and PMI adapted P&G's system to their own system. The company has chosen some of its affiliates as pilot affiliates for the implementation of OPEN+. PhilSA was one of the pilot affiliates and startedimplement OPEN+. The implementation is divided into five phases. In Phase 0, one machine model in each factory must meet the phase transition criteria. At the beginning of my project, the Filter Factory model machine made some progress compared to Phase 0, that's why I worked on other machines. The machines I worked on belong to Cell3 in Filter Factory, the machines are as follows; FI03, FI04, FI05, FI06, FI15 and FI16. In total I worked on six machines but there were only two types of machines; four cars were identical and two cars were identical. In my project I faced two main problems. The first big problem I faced was that PMI operators do some daily jobs while using their machines and these daily jobs take a certain amount of time. With the implementation of OPEN+ it is necessary to add several tools to their daily work. All these daily jobs are carried out several times a day alongside the operating machines. This implementation process must be carefully planned and all daily works must align with their priority. The second big problem I had to face concerned the behaviors and skills of the operators. Each operator has a different ability to understand the new tools provided with OPEN+ and this issue must be taken into consideration when creating an implementation plan. To understand the main problems I faced during my project, I will explain these two problems in detail. As I said before, the first big problem I faced was that SME operators do some daily jobs while using their machines and these daily jobs take a certain amount of time. In Filter Factor at PhilSA, there are four teams working in three shifts and each shift lasts eight hours. In these eight hours there is a 50 minute lunch break and two coffee breaks of 15 minutes each; in other words each shift has 400 minutes of working time. During the 400 minutes, they work on minor fixings on the machines for 108 minutes and work on long-term fixings on the machines for 45 minutes. While the machine is running it is necessary to change the cap wrappers 50 times in one shift and this operation takes 0.5 minutes; furthermore, they have to change the raw material called tow 1 time in a shift and this operation takes 10 minutes. Finally, they have to make stops to clean the machine every shift and this operation takes 30 minutes. All of these daily jobs take 218 minutes and there is an excess of 182 minutes in a shift, but these 182 minutes are distributed across shifts with respect to machine downtime. With the implementation of OPEN+, several tools that I will explain in the future need to be added to operators' daily work. The second big problem I had to face concerned the behaviors and skills of the operators. Human psychology initially rejects new routines and a system change that occurs in PMI contains many new routines and the operators are the ones who have achieved the maximum effect on them. As I said before, OPEN+ contains several tools that need to be performed by traders, but they are not willing to get used to these new tools due to time constraints. Additionally, each operator has a different ability to understand and execute all these new tools; there must be an implementation plan for each operator designed for each individual. Tools used during my internship The main tools I used for my project as an intern were MS Excel, MS Project, Arena Simulation and PMI's internal tools; SPA, LES and MES. Also, I used some optimization techniques.