8 AUGUST, 2022OPINIONNO SHORTCUTS TO THE FUTURE: PMI'S MANUFACTURING OF THE FUTURE ROADMAPBy Alessio Preti, Program Director, Philip Morris International (PM : NYSE)2016 marks a major milestone in the history of Philip Morris International (PMI), the year when we publicly announced our commitment to delivering a smoke-free future. Over the last five years, we have made significant progress towards realizing this goal, building a new smoke-free product portfolio, which as of September 30, 2021 represented almost 30 percent of our total net revenues and counted nearly15 million users around the world who switched to these products and stopped smoking. But our aspiration for achieving smoke-free world goes beyond that. By 2025, we are aiming to reach at least 40 million adult smokers who have switched entirely to our smoke-free products and stopped smoking. Building and growing a product portfolio to realize our smoke-free vision requires operational change. In the past, a new product launch involved two Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), with around four months lead time for the first market introduction and with the total global deployment taking up to two years. Now, with the introduction of smoke-free products portfolio, we are launching hundreds of SKUs worldwide simultaneously. Our smoke-free products are currently available in 70 markets, and our aspiration is to reach 100 markets by 2025. With a more complex product portfolio, multiple markets with simultaneous launches and shifting consumer preferences, the need for flexibility, agility across the end-to-end value chain, and high speed to market has never been greater. PMI Operations is rising to this challenge in multiple ways to support PMI's business transformation.Designing the Manufacturing of the Future ProgramTo ensure full integration of manufacturing into operations ecosystem as a part of the end-to-end supply chain, we have developed the Manufacturing of the Future program. Its goal is to increase speed & efficiency, strengthen consumer & people-centricity, and lead in long-term sustainability. This five-year journey is supported by a set of 10 design guidelines that will help steer the transformation and support decision-making along the way, driving the Manufacturing towards its zero-loss goal ­ standardized, lean, and cost-efficient processes. From these, we created a vision of the factory of the future and defined a specific roadmap to get there.Alessio Preti
< Page 7 | Page 9 >