‘tis plain the brains fall mainly in Spain

Teams from two factories in Spain have won places in the final of an Imperial Tobacco competition to test the company’s manufacturing employees on their safety, quality, environmental and product know-how.

More than 2,000 employees from 43 of Imperial’s factories worldwide have been competing in the Global Safety Pin contest, the grand final of which will be held at the company’s Kiev factory in April.

A team from Imperial’s Cantabria factory won the cigar division semi-final, which was held in the Dominican Republic, and a team from Cádiz won the Western Europe semi-final in the UK.

A further five semi-finals will be staged between now and November with the next being held at the company’s Tarnowo factory in Poland later this month for its Central Europe and USA factories.

A qualifying round involved around 300 teams taking part in an online quiz and presenting their ideas to improve operational efficiency to a panel of experts.

“The aim of this competition is to improve operational excellence as well as enjoy ourselves by sharing our knowledge and expertise,” said director of operations, Rainer Eberlein.