The Hauni Group’s Expertise & Technology Centre in Hamburg-Bergedorf offers the cigarette industry, as well as paper and glue manufacturers, a unique facility for developing and testing new ideas and variants of existing products.
Compact
Challenge
Introducing new materials and new developments is a complex business. Manufacturers must find out in advance how their plans will affect products and processes. Comprehensive testing on production machines and laboratory analysis require specialist know-how and equipment, generate high costs and tie up valuable capacity.
Solution
With more than 75 years of experience, Hauni’s Expertise & Technology Centre offers customers everything they need to test and develop new products and variants of existing products quickly and cost-effectively – from experts to test rigs to analytical procedures.
GECO: The combiner used in basic development allows customers to test an enormous range of rod and paper materials during the process.
Small decisions can have a big impact. For manufacturers of cigarettes and Tobacco Heating Products (THP), this applies to new developments as well as to modifications of existing products. These may be necessary, for example, due to new statutory regulations, the use of different glue or paper, and changes in suppliers. With more than 75 years of experience, Hauni’s Expertise & Technology Centre offers customers everything they need to develop new products and test variants of existing products: specialist know-how from recognized experts, production plants for filters, filter cigarettes and THP as well as a wide variety of test stands, laboratories, measuring and analysis equipment. “Here, our customers can develop a completely new product together with Hauni experts or test and optimize manufacturing processes for different end products using a variety of materials,” explains Knut Tracht, who set up the Centre at Hauni. “Our own ongoing development work and cooperation with scientific institutes ensure we are always at the cutting edge of technology.”
Scanning electron microscope (SEM): Provides images of material surface structures with a magnification of up to 10,000x.
High-tech laboratories and test stands
The range of analytical instruments available at the Centre is particularly impressive: In addition to a computer tomograph, it also has a scanning electron microscope and mass spectrograph as well as a Helicheck 3D scanner, an optical 3D microscope, high-speed and thermal imaging cameras and a geometric fibre analysis system.
“These outstanding technical facilities offer us a lot of possibilities,” explains Eduardo Garcia R&D Reduced Risk Products (RRP) Project Manager at JTI. “The acquisition costs and support requirements for this type of equipment are very high. The Centre also gives us access to the manufacturing expertise of the Hauni team.”
Innovations and modifications both usually depend on fast and cost-effective implementation. “By involving our experts in the development of products and processes from the outset, customers can unlock enormous potential for time and cost savings,” says Kira Wenzel, Group Manager Process Development at Hauni. “At the Centre, customers have the opportunity to work with Hauni experts and test manufacturing processes for different end products with a variety of materials. Moreover, they can optimize all the processes and parameters without having to take their own machines out of current production. It is the perfect preparation for the actual start of production.” In addition to determining the optimum settings for process technology, processing speeds, efficiency, cost effectiveness and material consumption, the Centre also provides support with feasibility studies, the production of samples, design FMEAs and flow simulations. At the various test stands for filter combining, gluing or laser perforation, customers can work with Hauni experts to determine the perfect system settings for their planned end product and analyze test runs with different parameters and materials. “These analyses are extremely reliable due to our state-of-the-art laboratories for the investigation of optical, physical and chemical parameters. They ensure that our customers can introduce new or modified products quickly, cost-effectively and with minimal disruption,” says Wenzel.
Cigarette quality measurement laboratory: For testing and evaluating parameters of intermediate and end products on behalf of our customers.
