Souvenir Tobacco Company Limited (Sec-III)Cont...

(Source: Green Leaf Thresher Department MGM Complex)

                                                                                                                      

4.6 Primary Manufacturing Department (PMD)

4.6.1 Mission Statement

“Provide secondary department with the best-valued product in order to gain their respect. Pursue continuous improvement of performance to best national practice standard in all operating and end-market companies. Achieve a high level of environment, health and safety performance as per PAK Govt guidelines.”

Primary Manufacturing Department (PMD) processes tobacco to be used in cigarettes. In primary manufacturing department, the tobacco is processed and cuts into small pieces, which is then filled in the cigarettes in SMD. The process of manufacturing cigarettes starts from PMD. This department gets processed tobacco from godown where tobacco is placed after processing at GLT plant and is brought to Leaf Reception Room called LRR, where it is again reweighed and then excise duty is paid here to Government. When it is reweighed here and duty is paid, one-operation starts, which means 5,000 kg of tobacco is processed.

PMD has two separate lines one for the stem processing and other for lamina processing. After processing them separately both of them are combined and put forward to CTS (Cut Tobacco Store). In addition to lamina and stem, smalls are also added that is the tobacco obtained from rejected cigarettes in SMD (secondary Manufacturing Department).

Processing of tobacco, which is divided into two lines, stem and lamina, is as follows.

4.6.2 Lamina Line

During processing of bales following steps are involved

1. Bales of lamina are obtained from godown, weighed and as per required duty are paid.
2. Bales are then pushed into cutter, which cuts each bale into five slices, (may be three as per requirement) the reason for cutting bale into five or three slices is that the input to DCC (Direct Conditioning Cylinder) is small and can’t get whole bale as input.
3. After bale is cut into slices there is pusher that pushes each slice into Conditioning Cylinder one by one, the pusher first moves the bale up and then pushes each slice into Cylinder.
4. Getting input from the pusher Conditioning Cylinder increases the moisture of lamina up to 21% ±2 for FCV and 23±2 for WP (White Patta). The reason for increasing the moisture level of lamina is that lamina can be threshed easily because if moisture level is not increased then while threshing lamina will turn into dust. So for this reason moisture in lamina is increased. In DCC chemicals are also added to moist lamina, which is added according to the recipe of the brand.
5. The moist lamina then comes into Blenders (FP SILOS). The primary function of blenders is to mix different tobacco types according to the recipe of brand. Layers of different lamina types are made which are then blended together to have constant composition. Blenders also provide constant tobacco to the threshers.
6. Blended lamina then comes to threshers, which cut it into size that is suitable for use in cigarettes; it cuts lamina into 26¬30 CPI (Cuts per inch). The optimum size is 28 CPI. Threshers have capacity of 4000 kg/hr.  
7.  Threshers supply moist and threshed lamina into Auto feed through conveyors whose primary function is to ensure even supply to dryers.
8. Lamina, which is moist and is of optimal size for use in cigarettes, is put into Dryer. Reason for drying lamina is that moist tobacco can’t be used in cigarettes.
9. (Source: Primary Manufacturing Department MGM Complex)
   4.6.3 Stem Line
   Stem that comes in sacks instead of bales is pushed into stem line. The reason for using sacks is that it does not easily loose moisture like that of lamina so it is stored in sacks. Stem is processed as follows
   1. Stem is harder than lamina so it requires more moisture to cut it into reasonable size. Required moisture for stem is 37%¬38%. Stem is put into 3CC (3 Compartment Cylinder), which provides the required moisture to stem.
   2. Moist stem is then put forward to blender which mix up stem of different kind according to recipe, stem is first put in form of layers and then blended together to have constant composition through out.
   3. Moist and soft stem is put onto conveyors, which push it into threshers that cuts stem into 160 CPI (Cut per Inch). Threshers have hydraulic system which moves knife.
   4. After cutting lamina in to desired size, stem is pulled up with the help of conveyors and pushed into Stem Dryer that uses gas to decrease moisture level of stem. The desired level of moisture in stem should be 18% while the incoming stem has moisture of about 38%. After heating up stem temperature of stem is increased and is about 100C, so it should be cooled down for this purpose Tower Separator is placed in next step.
   5. Hot stem is then sucked using pneumatic system which throws stem into tower separator. Function of tower separator is that it cools down the temperature and also the stem, which is not cut, falls down.
   6. Stem from tower separator is again pushed to blenders (FP SILOS), which again mix up the stem according to recipe. The processed stem is pushed towards next section with the help of conveyors.
   7. Processed and optimum sized stem and lamina are mixed up together along with Smalls (Tobacco from rejected cigarettes). The percentage of smalls added is about 20%.