Cigarette and tobacco company Philip Morris has hired Italian duo TIM Group and Olivetti to deploy an IoT system for yard management to improve planning and tracking of logistics vehicles in and out of its Crespellano plant in Bologna, Italy.
The move is part of the cigarette maker’s strategy to develop business around smoke-free (smoking) products. It has just announced a new smart factory for smoke-free products in Bologna, in the process of being kitted out with private LTE.
Italian mobile operator TIM said the planned IoT solution will queues and wait times for road hauliers at the site, and reduce the number of stationary vehicles and reduce local CO2 emissions. The project will also bring greater security and transparency to the company’s logistics operation.
TIM said Philip Morris will be able to better manage its overall logistics at the plant. The agreement between the companies describes a general project to “digitise accesses and logistics”.
Federico Rigoni, chief revenue officer at TIM, said: “We are particularly proud to pursue this project with the Philip Morris Group, dedicated to an important production site for the local economy and which constitutes an effective example of collaboration with players of the various production chains.
“The initiative is also in line with our strategy in the Italian industrial districts, where, with our cutting-edge competences and infrastructure, we wish to flank both excellent small businesses and important companies attentive towards the potential offered up by technology in creating value for the ecosystem, in the digital transformation”
Marco Hannappel, president and managing director of Philip Morris Italia, said: “The project with TIM seeks to constantly improve the efficiency of our production plants, taking a sustainable approach. We are proud to start collaborating with an Italian excellence with which we are working to increasingly digitise our plant for smoke-free products, which this year will attract significant further investments.”
TIM has partnered with the Swiss-American cigarette maker on a “series of collaborations and investments… on the Italian industrial scene”. The pair collaborate, as well, as part of the BI-REX Competence Centre in Bologna, one of eight A so-called ‘competence centres’ in the country established by by the Italian Ministry of the Economic Development as part of its national Industry 4.0 agenda.
Philip Morris has recently announced a €1 billion research and production plant in Bologna, in Italy, to headline its developing Industry 4.0 agenda. Tower operator INWIT is building a private 4G LTE network at the new facility, in the province of Valsamoggia, in Bologna, which makes combustion-free cigarettes.
The plant is the largest factory to have been built in Italy from scratch for two decades. Philip Morris said it is where “industrial processes for the creation of high-tech products are defined”, before being transferred to the other production facilities.
