Delivering a Smoke-Free Future

Since 2008, PMI has been working on developing and scientifically assessing less harmful smoke-free alternatives. The most successful smoke-free product, IQOS, was launched in 2014. Smoke-free products are manufactured in PMI’s factories in Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Romania, Poland, Korea and Indonesia. Company´s vision – shared by all at PMI – is that smoke-free products will one day replace cigarettes.

Ten years ago, PMI made a huge step towards making this vision a reality by making IQOS available for adult smokers for the first time. In the past ten years, the company has continuously innovated and expanded our portfolio of smoke-free products driven by consumers’ needs and expectations and backed by science. Today, its smoke-free products are available in 80+ markets globally, offering millions of adult smokers a range of better alternatives to continued smoking.

Today, IQOS is the no. 1 tobacco heating system globally with more than 28 million users, of which approximately 20.8 million stopped smoking, with the balance in various stages of conversion. In Japan, where IQOS was first launched 10 years ago, nearly 1/3 of adult smokers are using IQOS.

Heated tobacco products (HTPs), also known as heat-not-burn products, are electronic devices which heat tobacco without burning it to release a nicotine-containing aerosol, providing adults with a better alternative to continued smoking. They use consumable tobacco sticks, which are inserted into the device by consumers, and are disposed of after use.

Heated tobacco sticks (also known as heated tobacco units, or HTPs) are processed tobacco plugs designed for heating. The tobacco plug is made from tobacco leaves, which are ground and reconstituted into tobacco sheets, called cast-leaf. These sheets are then crimped and made into a tobacco plug. The latest generation of HTP also has a unique metal heating element coated with stainless steel for efficient tobacco heating.

Manufacturing heated tobacco products is an entirely different process than conventional cigarette making.

In the first use case, an automated material identification, traceability, and integration solution was created. PMI integrated OPC UA and the TMC Server to a specific machine.

PMI produces intermediate materials with different recipes and characteristics. When a downstream machine gets these materials, it checks if they match its process order. These materials have different attributes which can influence how they are processed or cause unplanned downtime.

Previously, every incoming material and its label had to be visually checked every four minutes. With limited information on the label, PMI could not get insights on material attributes. It was also difficult to improve their characteristics in upstream production processes.

Three issues make integrating OPC UA at PMI challenging.

First: The technical skill and effort needed to implement the companion specification varies from equipment-to-equipment across OEMs. This leads to differences in how well the companion specification is adhered to. Some machines in a production line adhere better than others.

The second challenge is the alignment of the companion specification with the data already available or generated by the equipment in OPC  UA and TMC retrofit use cases.

The third challenge revolves around effectively managing the substantial volume of data produced when equipment is OPC UA and TMC-enabled.

In high-speed production, syncing machine speeds within a production line is crucial. To decrease the impact of a machine failing, some material is stored in-between machines, in material buffers. When a machine fails, the material buffers hold materials from the upstream machine and feed the downstream machine. This prevents the whole line from stopping.

“Buffers, however, store limited amounts of materials. The speed of machines using these buffers impacts how long before we run out and the whole line stops,” explains Josselin Vallee.

Reducing the Amount of Buffer Material

Traditionally, PMI controlled machine speeds using machines’ status based on buffer filling levels, and visual observation.

In recent years, PMI has reduced the size of buffers in its production lines. “With smaller buffers, we had to improve equipment speed-control during failures to keep high uptime. Simply acting, based on buffer levels and relying on immediate reaction from our operators, wouldn’t be enough. We needed smarter controls.”

To tackle this, PMI engaged up with Aleph Digital Industry to create a robust, scalable, and adaptable edge solution to control machines exclusively through OPC UA.

“Aleph has developed the Speed Management Controller (SMC) for PMI, which operates on an edge controller, beside the machines”, explains Diego Paccagnan, CEO of Aleph Digital Industry. SMC continuously learns from each machine’s uptime and downtime, monitoring buffer levels, and predicting upcoming stops or restarts. “Based on this information, SMC adjusts the optimal speed for each machine, minimizing blockages or starvations”, says Diego Paccagnan.

With OPC UA and TMC in newly enabled equipment, coordinating machine speed on production and packaging lines becomes more precise. Decisions can be taken based on a large set of data points. This results in a longer mean time between failures and increased uptime, even for highly automated machines.

PMI is now globally implementing SMC, using the OPC UA communication standard’s interoperability and the TMC companion specification for scalability.