As dawn breaks over the production floor, there’s a particular magic in watching raw
materials transform into precision packaging. This April, as an Operations Management
student from SIBM Hyderabad immersed in my SIP at Shrinath Flexipack, I began
discovering that true operational excellence isn’t found in textbooks—it’s forged in the
rhythmic dance between machines and the people who master them.
My eight-week mission (April 7–May 31) is to solve the elusive puzzle of fill rate accuracy in
the Cast and Blown Lines. As I enter the third week of my SIP at Shrinath Flexipack, the
production floor has become my second home. The rhythmic hum of machines that once felt
foreign now speaks to me in a language I’m beginning to understand. Each morning when I
walk past the Cast and Blown Lines, I see more than just raw materials being transformed
into packaging – I see the living, breathing heart of operational excellence.
This journey that began on April 7th has already challenged everything I learned in my MBA
classrooms. The fill rate accuracy problem that seemed straightforward on paper has revealed
layers of complexity I couldn’t have anticipated. Those percentage points of variance I
initially saw as mere numbers. They’ve become living entities – each one telling a story of
delayed shipments, frustrated teams, and missed opportunities.
The shop floor has been my most demanding yet rewarding professor. In these three weeks,
I’ve learned to read production lines like a seasoned operator, noticing how the extruders
stutter when material viscosity changes, how the experienced hands of line workers can
detect issues before any sensor does. My MBA tools have taken on new life here: OEE charts
that were just academic exercises now pulse with real meaning, and 5s principles have
transformed from concepts into daily rituals.
My biggest revelation so far? The most valuable knowledge isn’t found in manuals or
dashboards, but in the calloused hands and sharp eyes of the operators who’ve spent years
mastering their craft. It came from embedding decades of their tacit knowledge into the
process.
As I prepare for the weeks ahead, I’m no longer just an MBA student on an internship. I’m
becoming a translator, bridging the gap between textbook theory and the sweat-stained reality
of the shop floor. The problems whisper their secrets now if I’m patient enough to listen. And
with each passing day, I’m learning that true operational excellence isn’t about perfect
systems but people, processes, and persistence working in harmony.
My automotive background taught me the religion of precision, but packaging is teaching me
its art. Where cars demanded millimeter perfection, packaging requires dancing with material
variations. The revelation? The most powerful operational improvements often come from
the smallest observations – like noticing how the afternoon sun changes material behavior,
or how a veteran operator’s “gut feeling” usually proves right. It’s these human elements that
no algorithm can replicate.
