Industrial Visit 2013

Today I'd like to share you about my experience. It's industrial visit 2013, an annual event held by KSTM. It's held on Thursday, March 28 2013. This year, we visited Indofood factory and Unilever factory located in Surabaya. We went there by bus. Jogja kara Surabaya made basu de 9 jikan gurai kakarimasu. Curious? Scroll down

breakfast :3

PT Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur TBK

As we all know, Indofood has a wide variant of products. That day, we visited the noodle area. We were welcomed in a kind of guest room there. We listened to a brief explanation about safety procedure and the factory process there and after that, we went to see the process with our own eyes.

By the way, no camera is allowed in factory area because the wave and the flash may ignite fire. So, I don't have any pics inside the factory. But I can tell you about the process, it seems quite simple actually. Here they are.

1. Flour is mixed with alkali like NaCl and other secret ingredients.

2. Pressing process. The mixture is pressed until it reachs specific thickness.

3. Tripping process. To make a wavy noodle.

4. Steaming. To "cook" the noodle.

5. Cutting. The long paste is finally cut into one-portion of noodle.

6. Frying. This process is quite interesting since it's not a batch frying (like our moms do when cooking french fries) but it's a continous frying. In simple words, the oil is moving continously with the noodle. There's no oil accumulated nor is used twice.

7. Cooling. The noodle's temperature is cooled down with air.

8. Packing. This one is done by humans. But one thing that makes me a lil bit wondered is that the workers don't use gloves and they washed their hand with ethanol every 2 hours. Err... can't you imagine our noodle is mixed with ethanol. Um.. well, the representative of Indofood explained about it but actually I'm still lil bit confused. Anyone enlighten me, please?

After seeing the process, we went back to the guest room. They kindly gave us a sample of Indomie Cabe Ijo flavour. After that, we had a time for discussion.

Trivia:

1. This Indomie factory in Surabaya can produce up to 20.000 pack Indomie per machine per hour. And they have 15 indomie machine. Yeah, you count it. hehe.

2. It shuts down every Id Fitr for annual maintenance.

3. For noodle itself, Indofood has many brands like Indomie, Sarimie, Supermie, Mie Sakura, Popbihun, Mie Telur Cap 3 Ayam, and Popmie. Of course, the quality is different (based on the price, obviously).

Unilever Indonesia

Can you imagine how many products that Unilever produces? So many! (see the list on the web yourself, hehe) and here in Indonesia they only have 2 factories. One is located in Karawang and the other is located in Rungkut, Surabaya.

We were welcomed in a kind of guest room there (I like here better! The chair was so comfortable). They explained about safety procedure and 3 major sub-factories in the district. They are personal care, personal wash, and Dove (I also saw Walls factory there, why they didn't mention that yah?).

Then, we're all divided into 3 groups and went to those factories to see the process with our own eyes. I went to personal care, the soap factory. The Lux and Lifebuoy factory (you know, they themselves, have so many variant). Again, no camera is allowed. So, here's the brief explanation about the process:

1. Silo. From raw material in storage they put it into

2. Day bin. Into daily bin

3. Weighing process. From the bin, they take the material with certain weigh.

4. Pre mix. Mixing the raw material. In this process, Lux and Lifebouy material is still the same.

5. Mix. The difference between Lifebouy and Lux is in this process. They give different extract and scent to each products.

6. Packing line. They are being cut, engraved, and packed. Voila, it's done!

Although my explanation here is shorter, but believe me, the process in Unilever is more complicated than in Indofood. Hehe. After that, we went back to the guest room to get further explanation (and get some ice cream too! Haha)

If I may say, Unilever is a very loyal company. Not only to its employees but also to its future employees. They gave us ice cream and goodies (and couple of days ago, I joined a seminar held by Unilever and they did the same). Yet the consequence is that the process to work there is sooo difficult. We have to pass five tests and they are super selective. Unilever is a great company, though. Well, if I may compare to Indofood, Unilever really gives a strong highlight about the recruitment procedure. Hm hm hm...

One word: Amin

In front of Unilever factory

Thank you Indofood. Thank you Unilever. Last but not least, thank you KSTM for the opportunities. Let's study and become dependable chemical engineer. One thing that I like from mass production business is that it meets the market demand for a cheap yet good quality product. Mass production helps our country to grow. Viva mass production!