University of the Philippines Industrial Engineering Alumni Association

Symposium Showcases the Application of IE Principles in Food Security

Posted on: Jul 24, 2018

Ensuring Continued Access to Food for 100 Million Filipinos

The UP Industrial Engineering Alumni Association recently partnered with the Office of the Secretary of the Department of Science and Technology, specifically, the Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development, or PCIEERD, to mount a well-attended full-day technical symposium, ‘How Do We Feed One Hundred Million?’, subtitled, ‘IEmagineering Systems for Food Security’, last April 21, held at the National Institute of Physics at the Diliman campus. There were nearly 300 industrial engineering students who attended the symposium, with the largest delegation coming from Batangas State University. The next largest delegations came from San Pedro College of Business Administration (Laguna) and Holy Angel University (Angeles, Pampanga). As the symposium posters stated, the symposium hoped to ‘start a conversation on challenges, limitations, threats and solutions to a critical issue that our nation faces – food security.’

Keynote Speaker and Lecture Presenters

Click each image for full presentation videos

DOST Secretary Fortunato ‘Boy’ dela Peña kicked off the symposium with his keynote address on the role of IEs in food security. Having been an MS IE degree holder from UP as well as chair of the UP Department of IE and Operations Research in the late 70s, Secretary dela Peña was well-positioned to talk about the relevance of industrial engineering in the food supply chain. But he also enlightened the audience with a snapshot of the various technological breakthroughs that DOST had been sponsoring to date.

Christine Pardiñas, a UPIE alumna and the VP for supply chain of the Rustan’s Supercenter Inc (RSCI), which aside from Rustans Supermarkets includes Shopwise, Marketplace, and Wellness, talked about retail downstream supply chain in the RSCI merchandise flow. She broke down a typical work day required to meet the challenges a complex list of SKUs and different formats. Christine encouraged the students to consider careers in supply chain in country with the new challenges it is facing. Christine is president-elect of the Supply Chain Management Association of the Philippines (SCMAP).

Beng Pangan, the President of Air 21, gave the students a good overview of Air 21 operations and how well integrated the various supply chain points were. Mr. Pangan estimated that 20 to 50 percent of fresh goods are damaged during the journey from market to consumer. Rather than merely accept this as a given, Air 21 is in the process of upgrading its trucks to suit the demand of the food industry. A modern truck that had a freezer, a chilled container, and a dry goods section was on display outside the conference venue.

After lunch, Teng Aguilar, VP for Del Monte, gave the audience a sneak peek into the planting, harvesting, canning, and distribution processes of the company. It was obvious that despite being highly dependent on agriculture—involving a product with various production complexities—Del Monte has emerged as the world’s leading vertically integrated producers, marketers, and distributors of high-quality products, on the back of a highly efficient farm to retail operation. Teng is an alumnus of UP Diliman College of Engineering.

Noel Tempongko, another UP IE alumnus, and president of Century Pacific Agricultural Ventures, which manufactures among other things Vita Coco and Century Tuna, focused on eco-systems thinking in food manufacturing. Noel presented case studies where this holistic approach generates additional output from by-product (integrated coconut farming); decreases production cycle time (poultry tunnel ventilation); transforms input material for sustainability (beer plastic pallets); and even preserves entire industries (3-month tuna ban). Noel has a rich experience from several agricultural firms.

Finally, Kallol Mukherjee, Purchasing Director for Unilever Philippines, talked on the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. Mr. Mukherjee argued that sustainable sourcing brings far-reaching benefits to all involved – for instance, he cited sustainable farming methods that enhanced farmer livelihood by increasing yield and quality, thereby improving profit margins. Kallol then brought sustainability into the context of the digital world. Here, he cast a vision of digital farming, big data cloud computing, blockchain technology for tracing, and accessible logistics.

Organizers and Event Sponsors

Moderating the full-day event were Kenny Bulahan, Vice President of UPIEAA, Liza Ting and Jop Yap, UPIEAA trustees. At the end of the talks, the President of the UPIEAA, Ricky Banaag, former Country Managing Director of Intel Philippines, gave a succinct summary of the proceedings and highlighted the takeaways for those in attendance. It was also announced that videos featuring the event’s lectures will available at www.upieaa.org. To make the event more memorable and fun for the students, prizes which included eco-bags from Rustan’s; rechargeable fans, speakers, powerbanks and gift certificates from UPIEAA officers and friends, and; a Pureit Water Purifier from Unilever were raffled off at the end of the convention.