P&G Factory Tour

I saw posters all over the business school announcing a P&G plant tour. There were no details, so I called around. Next day there was an email with details- lucky for me I have a student email account, not staff. So on Wednesday I went with 18 students from the Engineering Student Club to tour Procter & Gamble Gebze plant. We traveled 1 1/2 hours in a charted minibus to an industrial park on the Asian side. Strict security- we had to give our IDs and then receive an ID card. Pictures were only allowed in the visitors' room. Outside this room they had charts about their production, morale, etc. but I was not allowed to photograph.

The first woman asked if there were any foreign visitors. I raised my hand so consequently the students had to listen to the presentation in English! She was Ms. P&G, proudly proclaiming that they "make the life of each customer really better each year."

The presenters quickly engaged the students by asking how many brands they think P&G has, how many employees, etc. Guessing the correct answer for employees (450 in Gebze) I received a kilo of Ariel, their most expensive detergent. I saw on the poster that Olay is a P&G brand- would have been nice to win a bag of Olay products, but this plant only manufacturers detergent, diapers and feminine products!

This was a recruiting event. They said they were interested in all degrees, for all functions. The students check job availability online and take some tests. If they pass, they are invited for interviews. They were promoting the P&G Live Event in March. Our CMC should see if we could have such an event. BBAs- check this page.

Internships are a minimum 2 months in the summer. It was a real corporate pitch- I hadn't seen this in awhile; it was textbook corporate strategy. They talked about Power of People, Power of Agility and Power of Minds. They offer a challenging environment with young managers, lots of learning opportunities, international exposure and promotion from within (in the marketing seminar I attended on Friday at Koç- the professor mentioned that P&G's promotion from within was one of their downfalls and the current CEO changed this..more on this later.)

At Gebze they produce detergent, bleach, diapers and feminine pads. They export toRomania, Balkans, Nigeria, Russia, Kuwait, Iran, Afghanistan and the Caucases.

The following presenters spoke in Turkish so a few students translated for me. After we put on our safety shoes, we entered the factory floor. They made sure we took ear plugs from the dispenser and once we were on the noisy factory floor they started their explanations! The plant is highly automated, resulting in few employees on the floor. Posters are plastered everywhere - Safety, Quality and Delivery. Posters illustrate x savings by doing y. Machine operators have their photo on the machine that they are responsible for. We passed rooms of people starring at computer screens (quality control) and labs. 78% of detergent produced is for local consumption.

In response to the economic situation they are already producing more of the cheaper line of detergent. For China they make a cheaper diaper, per customer request. Process Engineers were are tour guides. They're responsible for increasing productivity and decreasing costs. Our guide received her MBA from the UK. Parts of the plant runs 24/day. They use hazardous enzymes in the detergent, but of course assured us that they only use an acceptable amount and this activity is isolated from the rest of the operation. After seeing the massive towers and huge operation, I thought about the Native Americans gathering plants and whopping their clothes against the rocks. Have we really progressed?

Entering the packaging facility I observed that it was Israel day- all packaging in Hebrew. Turns out they do this run in 2 hours and then switch to another language!

We concluded the day with lunch- Sodexho is the contractor here, as well as at Koç. I think Sodexho could radically increase their profits if they uniformally adopted the Turkish menu! The 2 engineer tour guides ate with us and answered more student questions. Students were impressed with the tour and most hoped to land a job with P&G.