On Friday 4th October 2019, food technology and chemical engineering students Andrean, Lidwina, Rayhan, Ameera, Adzra, Julia, Lukas and Kareem, and lecturers Mrs. Evelyn, Mrs. Mirza, Mrs. Tina, Dr. Lucia, and Dr. Luth set off to an excursion to PT. Arnott’s Indonesia in Bekasi. Arnott’s is a company which sells baked goods which can be found in Indonesian markets; which include timtams, shapes, nyamnyam, tartlets, good time, etc. They also export Pepperidge Farms’ Pirrouette Wafers.
The introduction was done by Mrs. Citra Kemala, the supply chain director of PT. Arnott’s Indonesia. She gave a brief history and explanation about the company, as Mrs. Retno Damayanti from HR Department advised students to make unique CVs in order to get a position they want in a job.
The program included an introduction to R&D by Mr. Jeffrey, the R&D professional of PT. Arnott’s Indonesia where he explained the R&D system from the system regulatories, packaging development, product and process development, project commercialization (and timelines), and sensory sciences where an R&D of a food company focuses on, the main challenges of the R&D department (identifying what the consumers want), and also having good relations with suppliers.
Then, an introduction to QA was brought to us by Mrs. Tika, she explained that there must be an assurance that the results of the upscaled productions should be same to ones that were lab scaled by identifying and minimizing the differences, and continuously making improvements and making quality overviews. She also explained that QA is based on a lot of different factors, which included consumer acceptability, problem definition and control, and food safety parameters which included microbiological, physical, and chemical hazards, proper GMP should be practiced, and quality systems should be followed.
Videos were also played about the company’s timeline of history and development throughout the years, alongside the explanations of safety rules and GMPs applied in the company.
After the speakers were done, everyone was guided to go on a factory tour by the production manager, Mrs. Puji and QMS manager, Mr. Wibowo. It is compulsory for everyone entering the factory to wear the appropriate clothing provided and wash hands as a part of the company’s GMPs to be followed. They visited the good time factory, where the cookies were made from the mixing, forming, baking, cooling, packaging, and distribution.
Following the factory tour, they were also guided to a lab tour where the samples of raw materials were chemically and microbiologically sampled analysed, with brief and detailed explanations of the equipment and their methods of analysis, along with the packaging analysis.
Lastly, they guided to the R&D office by Mr. Jeffrey to see the recent researches and product developments which currently focused on chocolate processing.
Excursions are an important recreational and educative part of being a university student to give them a simulation of the jobs assigned to their specific study programs, and also for them to comprehend the applications of the fundamental knowledge they learned in classes, and further understand the purpose of their small-scaled lab activities in large industries like PT. Arnott’s Indonesia. Activities like these also help students know which department in a company they are interested in, and what qualities or subjects they should develop.
