The US cigarette manufacturer, Xcaliber International, has invested in a new cigarette manufacturing line that will increase its capacity by about 30 percent.
The 10,000-cigarettes-per-minute line from Hauni Maschinenbau will sit alongside similar manufacturing lines housed in the company’s production facility at Pryor, Oklahoma.
It is expected to be operational by November.
“The decision to make an investment in a new manufacturing line underscores our confidence in Xcaliber’s growth strategy,” said COO Derrick Taylor.
“This investment will increase capacity by approximately 30 percent, will provide improved manufacturing flexibility, and further supports our mission to provide top value products in the Tier Four [discount/generic] category.”
In a press note published through PR Newswire, the company said that it was the leading Tier Four cigarette manufacturer in the US.
‘Xcaliber International is built on the foundation of providing the highest value products in the Tier Four category,’ the note said.
A new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine reports that output from the Philip Morris International heat-not-burn product, iQOS, contains the same harmful components as are found in conventional tobacco cigarette smoke, according to a healio.com story relayed by the TMA.
Writing in the current publication, Dr. Reto Auer, of the Institute of Primary Health Care at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said PMI claimed that iQOS released no smoke because the tobacco did not combust and the tobacco leaves were only heated not burned. ‘However, there can be smoke without fire,’ he said.
‘The harmful components of tobacco cigarette smoke are products of incomplete combustion (pyrolysis) and the degradation of tobacco cigarettes through heat (thermogenic degradation).’
Auer and his colleagues analyzed and compared the contents and toxic compounds released in iQOS (iQOS Holder, iQOS Pocket Charger, Marlboro HeatSticks [regular], and Heets, Philip Morris SA) ‘smoke’ with that of conventional cigarettes (Lucky Strike Blue Lights).
Their study was said to have found that iQOS smoke contained similar levels of volatile organic compounds and nicotine as the smoke from conventional cigarettes, and that heat-not-burn products released higher levels of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon acenaphthene than did conventional cigarettes.
The researchers called for further evaluation of the health effects of iQOS and recommended that heated tobacco products should be subjected to the same indoor-smoking bans as were conventional tobacco cigarettes.
Philip Morris International said yesterday that it had released its second Scientific Update for Smoke-Free Products, a regular publication on its research efforts to develop and assess a range of potentially reduced-risk alternatives to cigarettes.
‘This issue of the Scientific Update focuses on novel approaches to e-vapor products,’ the company said in a note posted on its website. ‘Technology and innovation can improve user experience and continuously enhance a product’s potential to present less risk of harm than smoking. The focus of the issue details the product design and manufacturing behind MESH, the new generation of e-vapor technology PMI is currently test marketing in Birmingham (UK). MESH is one of the four smoke-free product types developed by PMI, along with IQOS.’
Professor Manuel Peitsch, PMI’s chief scientific officer, was quoted as saying that PMI was working to transition progressively its existing cigarette business to smoke-free products. “By offering a diverse portfolio of innovative and scientifically substantiated alternatives, we believe we can accelerate the switching of an even greater number of adult smokers who would otherwise continue to smoke and have a positive impact on public health.”
Meanwhile, Michele Cattoni, PMI’s vice president Technology and Operations, was quoted as saying that technological innovation was at the heart of PMI’s efforts to create a smoke-free future. “We have developed an e-vapor product which, like our other smoke-free technologies, incorporates the highest manufacturing and design standards to ensure the consistency and quality of the generated vapor.”
PMI says that beyond the development behind PMI’s MESH proprietary technology, the Update provides an overview of its assessment to date. ‘The issue also covers the latest studies, key peer-reviewed publications and presentations at scientific conferences,’ it said. ‘It is an important complement to PMI’s ongoing efforts to share its latest science, which include a dedicated website (www.pmiscience.com).
‘PMI’s extensive research and assessment program is inspired by the well-recognized practices of the pharmaceutical industry and in line with guidance of the US FDA for Modified-Risk Tobacco Products (MRTPs).
‘The company today employs over 400 world-class scientists, engineers and experts who conduct rigorous research, including laboratory and clinical studies, as well as ground-breaking systems toxicology. The assessment program also includes studies on actual product use and correct understanding of product communications, as well as post-market research.’
New EU regulations governing vaping products sold in the UK are ‘stringent and ill-conceived, and should be reviewed and overhauled as part of the Brexit process for the good of the country’s public health’, according to the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA).
To ensure that the UK realised the massive potential health benefit of vaping for those seeking to stop or reduce smoking, and to save the government billions of pounds in National Health Service (NHS) costs, there was a need for an overhaul of Article 20 of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive, which come into force on May 20.
The UKVIA said that while it welcomed those aspects of the new EU regulations that provided certainty and clarity on quality and safety issues pertaining to vaping products, the provision of product information and the testing of products and their vapor emissions, it was questioning what it termed ‘the level of ill-conceived restrictions on nicotine strengths and e-liquid bottle sizes and advertising bans akin to those for cigarettes’.
The association said it believed such ill-conceived regulation would impact the continuing growth of the vaping market, which was today worth more than half a billion pounds in consumer purchases – purchases that reflected the enormous demand from smokers for less harmful alternatives to smoking.
‘Vaping is currently enjoyed by some three million smokers in the UK, over half of whom now describe themselves as “former smokers”,’ a UKVIA press note said. ‘Based on the NHS’s valuation of £74,000 for every smoker that stops smoking, a total saving of £111 billion for the nation’s coffers is already being realised.’
Charles Hamshaw-Thomas, a UKVIA board member (pictured), was quoted as saying that a huge potential public health prize could be lost if the UK government didn’t act swiftly. “We are very concerned about several of the new EU regulations which pay lip service to the potentially seismic public health opportunity which is widely recognised as being on offer,” he said. “Excessive restrictions, almost identical to those for tobacco products, make no sense if all smokers and the wider public are to be made aware that vaping is much more healthier than smoking.
“There is huge demand from smokers for less harmful alternatives to cigarettes. In August 2015, Public Health England reported that vaping is likely to be at least 95 percent less harmful than smoking; and since then a growing consensus has emerged in the public health community that vaping products are life changers. It’s critical therefore that the government, in the world of Brexit, ensures that the UK’s regulatory base and framework for vaping and reduced-risk nicotine products is fit for purpose and that the industry is incentivised to develop and promote new and ever better products so that a smoke free world becomes a reality.
“We are calling for Article 20 to be overhauled at the earliest possible opportunity in the Brexit process.”
Meanwhile health behaviourist, Peter Hajek, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, said that vaping would now be regulated much more strictly than conventional cigarettes were regulated. This would make it fiddly, less helpful for dependent smokers and more expensive. And it would discourage further product improvements. There was no logical justification for any of these measures.
“In a nutshell, the EU TPD protects cigarettes from their much less risky competitor and will be damaging to public health,” he said. “If there is any leeway to ignore or scrap this part of the Directive, now or in the future, it should be taken.”
The UKVIA press note said that many stop smoking services across the UK were beginning to declare themselves as ‘vape friendly’, by advocating vaping products as a quitting aid. But many feared the new rules would act as a barrier.
“We are concerned that aspects of the Tobacco Products Directive work against helping people stop smoking, by making life for vapers more difficult – sub-optimal strength nicotine, small bottles, small tanks – and by preventing positive messages being shared among those who have been frightened off vaping by a hostile propaganda war,” said Louise Ross, Stop Smoking Service Manager in Leicester.
The decision by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health to take action against Philip Morris New Zealand (PMNZ) over the sale of its smoke-free heated tobacco product demonstrated the urgent need for comprehensive reform so that smokers could switch from cigarettes to smoke-free alternatives including heated tobacco products, according to a PM press release published by scoop.co.nz.
The Ministry of Health has filed a complaint in the Wellington District Court against PMNZ over the importation and sale of the company’s Heets tobacco sticks, which are the consumable part of its IQOS heat-not-burn product, according to a stuff.co.nz story relayed by the TMA. The ministry considers Heets to comprise tobacco products designed for oral use other than for smoking, which are prohibited under the Smoke-Free Environments Act 1990. A hearing in the case has been set for June 2.
The general manager of PMNZ Jason Erickson said the company had firmly believed it would be helping to advance the government’s goal of securing a smoke free New Zealand when it introduced its smoke-free product IQOS to New Zealand last year.
PMNZ launched the IQOS device and Heets tobacco sticks in New Zealand in December 2016 as part of the company’s stated global commitment to replacing conventional cigarettes with smoke-free alternatives.
Erickson said the company was confident that the sale of IQOS and Heets fully complied with the Smoke-Free Environments Act (1990) and other relevant legislation in New Zealand.
“The section of the law referenced by the ministry in its action against Philip Morris was originally put in place in the 1990s to address American-style chewing tobacco,” Erickson said.
“We stand behind IQOS and Heets. But it’s clear that old 20th century laws are not sufficient to address new 21st century technologies that New Zealand smokers are embracing as they move away from combustible cigarettes.”
The New Zealand Government announced in March that it would legalise the sale and supply of nicotine electronic cigarettes and e-liquid, and establish a pathway to enable emerging tobacco and nicotine-delivery products to be sold lawfully as consumer products.
“We support New Zealand’s Smoke-free 2025 goal,” Erickson said. “Philip Morris looks forward to working with government to ensure IQOS and Heets are fully understood in the context of the regulations being developed for e-cigarettes and emerging tobacco and nicotine-delivery products.”
The PM press note said that IQOS was available in in more than 20 countries, including the UK, Japan, Italy and Switzerland. Globally, more than two million smokers had switched to IQOS and the company had plans to expand to key cities in 30 countries by the end of 2017.
The organizers of the Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN) have said that the program for the 2017 event is complete.
The GFN is due to be held at the Marriott Centrum Hotel, Warsaw, Poland, on June 15-17.
The main GFN program, which is scheduled for June 16 and 17, will examine the rapidly developing science in relation to nicotine use and the changing landscape, including policy responses and the influence of different stakeholders in this.
The program will comprise plenary sessions, symposia, panel discussions and poster presentations – including video posters.
June 15 is scheduled to include the Michael Russell oration, and satellite and side meetings, including one for consumers organised by the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations.
It will include, too, the first International Symposium on Nicotine Technology designed to showcase the latest technological advances in alternative nicotine delivery systems, next generation devices and the science behind them (http://isontech.info/).
The problem of underage people buying cigarettes and alcohol might soon be a thing of the past in Denmark, according to a story by Stephen Gadd for cphpost.dk.
Fourteen interested parties from different sectors such as business, trade unions, interest organisations and producers have come together to launch a new mobile app called Smart ID, which can be presented by would-be purchasers to verify their age.
“I hope it will become more customary to be asked your age in a shop and that we can agree that children should not be allowed to buy adult-exclusive products,” said Susanne Mørch Koch, the administrative director of Danske Spil, one of the developers of the app.
Gadd said that a recent series of articles in Politiken had highlighted how easy it was for underage children to buy cigarettes in Denmark, where nearly all the shops approached sold tobacco products to people without checking their IDs.
De Samvirkende Købmænd, an organization representing many shops, kiosks and petrol stations, says that it is happy to co-operate with the initiative, but there is a problem. Many shops experience a negative reaction when people are asked their age. “If a cashier is repeatedly berated for just doing their job and asking for ID, then it could well be that they don’t ask in the future,” Claus Bøgelund, the vice director of the organization, said. “We have to do something about that.”
Meanwhile, the Danish Cancer Society’s project director Niels Them Kjær, who is involved in tobacco limitation programs, was quoted as saying he was happy to see some focus on the problem. But he was sceptical as to whether the initiative would have the desired result without the campaign’s being followed by concrete action.
“Now we just need shops to start asking young people their ages, but they’ve promised to do that before,” he said. “We also need the authorities to get involved, and I think we will probably have to start fining shops that break the law.”
Developing customized, flexible and efficient solutions, machinery makers are meeting the challenges of an industry in transition.
By Stefanie Rossel
The pace of change in the tobacco industry has accelerated significantly in recent years. The decrease of global cigarette sales volumes continued in 2016, amounting to an estimated 3 percent; in China, sales volume reportedly even shrank by 8 percent. New regulations, such as the revised EU Tobacco Products Directive, which was implemented in May 2016, are forcing tobacco companies to focus on compliance.
This year started with British American Tobacco’s takeover of Reynolds American Inc., another mega-merger that is likely to lead to further rationalization of production sites and perhaps further concentration among the tobacco giants. As demand for combustible cigarettes declines worldwide, cigarette alternatives continue to show impressive growth rates.
Ian TIndall
In response, cigarette manufacturers have started repurposing their factories. In March, Philip Morris International (PMI) announced a €300 million investment ($319.59 million) to convert its Papastratos factory in Greece from a cigarette-making facility into an iQOS “tobacco sticks” plant.
Unsurprisingly, investments in traditional tobacco making and packing equipment have been lower in the past few years. “We are all certainly operating in a very challenging environment,” says Ian Tindall, innovation and marketing director at Molins. He remains optimistic, however. “Despite the consolidation of the industry that we all hear about, there are still many independent players who continue to invest, albeit in a more modest scale than some of the big multinationals. They see the value of working with established and reputable suppliers, and so there is some space to operate.”
And even beyond smaller tobacco companies, the machinery sector still offers considerable opportunity; it just takes the right strategy to seize them.
Molins, for example, identified the need for a full end-to-end offering for the mid-speed market where reliability, robustness and quick brand changes are key. “We have introduced the Alto and Octave making machines to compliment the Forte filter maker, and then introduced the Optima hinge-lid packing machine to give true make-pack capability from a single supplier,” says Tindall.
New business models
At the same time, Molins reorganized its business into a “one-stop shop.” “We have amalgamated Langen Group, Molins Tobacco Machinery, Molins Technologies and Cerulean into a single company: Molins,” says Tindall. “This has immediately added to our offering comprehensive testing capabilities that can be delivered to our customers through the Cerulean brand. We can now deliver a total make-pack-test line and even a whole laboratory for regulatory testing if needed. This merging of companies has also given the customer access to a greater number of field engineers and, when considering special projects, a larger number of scientists and development engineers. We believe by offering more support to our customers we can allow them to concentrate on what they do best, and this brings success for both us and them.”
TMQS of Germany has also gone through a transformation. Starting out as a supplier of spare parts in 2001, the company today describes itself as a solutions provider.
“While we are not focusing on providing new machinery as our main field of business, the important point for us is to deliver whatever is required in terms of improvements, leading to a better machinery usage, improved embedding of machinery into their new surroundings, modernized and enhanced data collection, and usage of systems and anything else providing benefit for a factory in its specific situation,” says TMQS sales manager Norbert Schulz-Nemak.
“All this needs to happen with a very high value-for-money ratio, and it must be done with an open-minded approach. Barely any project is like the other, which is due to the specifics of every machine and the required outcome.”
While acknowledging the challenging business environment, Schulz-Nemak believes it also provides opportunities. For example, equipment suppliers can participate in the consolidation process by developing solutions for new production processes or simply by helping factories save money.
“This can range from small solutions like an improved version of a ledger drive for cigarette and filter making via very tailored processes of sub-assembly repair or maintenance with optimal content for the exact requirements or an active diameter control for cigarette and filter makers up to high-tech solutions for very specific products in diverse markets,” he says.
Opportunities prevail
The equipment market is saturated due to the consolidation among the cigarette companies and the subsequent shifting of manufacturing capacities into fewer factories producing larger volumes. However, such developments may also mean good business for machinery suppliers. “These additional manufacturing capacities usually go along with the need for a bigger variety in brands for the receiving factories as long as local brands are shifted to different factories. This could also mean that new machinery is required as space is limited but capacities are to be increased. And even if no new machinery is required, specific standardizations or modernizations may need to be projected in order to bring all machinery to the factory standard,” says Schulz-Nemak.
Even as cigarette volumes continue to decline, the variety of brands is increasing as consumers demand more individualized products. For cigarette manufacturers, this means shorter production runs and more frequent brand changes. “As multinationals continue to develop new variations of existing brands and try to develop new brands, we are also seeing a resurgence in format change parts for the MK9 Classic and orders for new machines,” confirms Tindall. “This mid-speed machine is known as the ‘workhorse of the industry,’ and over the years has shown to be perfect for any cigarette variant.”
He says that these changing consumer requirements might spawn a new type of “boutique” cigarette producer targeting very specific markets. “To us, this niche is one we have targeted and fulfill well.”
Joining forces
Tobacco machinery suppliers have also embraced digitization, automation and interconnectivity. Molins’ latest equipment is capable of communicating with other parts of the production line, including makers, packers and testing equipment. It is ready to take advantage of developments such as data mining and metrics.
According to Schulz-Nemak, most of TMQS’ solutions are able to share data with the next-level management information system (MIS). “This enables our customers to embed these units into their own MIS and its data to be used for process evaluations or as one basis for higher-level systems.”
These days, tobacco machinery suppliers often cooperate with IT companies.
Working with a partner, Molins can deliver plant-wide quality-assurance data systems, such as Nexus, which has been deployed successfully. “This adds value to the manufacturing chain by ensuring that products are being made to the appropriate quality specifications and that the product is adequately verified,” explains Tindall.
TMQS works with Shenzhen Hualong Xunda Information Technology Co. “They develop complete solutions for whole factories that enable a full reporting and a management of the manufacturing processes on the click of a button,” says Schulz-Nemak. “Everything can be connected—from sensors within the machines providing status messages about the condition of functional groups via information on parts usage on each machine to develop a preventive warning system about potential upcoming breaks based on real usage data via material usage, real-time visualization of all machines in a virtual factory to a full management information system informing about all key parameters of the manufacturing process, ranging from primary to secondary operations and further,” he says.
Staying flexible
In times of industry transition, flexibility is key. “Our firm belief is that, by changing with the industry we can be better placed to meet the demands of consumers and regulators,” says Tindall. “This requires Molins to be an agile partner in changing to meet market demands, and this is reflected in the products we have been bringing to market.”
Schulz-Nemak notes that a concentration of production capacities is usually accompanied by the target of cost reduction, while the quality of the manufactured goods is expected to remain at least at the same level. “TMQS is set up to deliver exactly this, he says. The company, he says, offers direct cost savings, cost savings through standardization and cost savings through technical solutions that, among other benefits, reduce downtime.
This approach, says Schulz-Nemak, allows TMQS to look toward the future with confidence. “The requirements will keep changing,” he predicts. “We are ready for this ongoing challenge.”
NDC has launched its service “cloud,” myNDC, which will simplify the customer’s interaction with the company.
The company is offering Incident Management tools to its customers in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific immediately at launch. This will be followed with a local introduction to China later this year.
MyNDC will simplify IT infrastructure to replace multiple applications that were used to provide customer service. The system enables a seamless customer service agent experience to create tickets, view a customer’s installed base or their service history, allowing the team to focus and prioritize service requests.
NDC’s service team will be able to execute service requests more comprehensively using a knowledge base, and optimize its global resources to deliver optimal levels of service. Customers will even be able to generate their “return materials authorizations” though myNDC.
NDC Technologies is energized by the challenge of new tobacco products.
By George Gay
As combustible tobacco cigarettes start to make way for less risky products that require new or modified manufacturing materials, it would seem reasonable to assume that some of the traditional suppliers to the tobacco manufacturing industry must be wondering what tomorrow holds for them. But last month, when Tobacco Reporter caught up with the global marketing director of NDC Technologies, Ian Benson, he appeared primed for a demanding but interesting future for his company’s on-line measuring instrumentation. The traditional tobacco industry is still a strong and important part of NDC’s business, he said, and while the consumption of combustible products is declining slightly, it isn’t going to disappear in a hurry. The industry is still innovating, and it has a huge installed base of on-line infrared gauges that will need to be replaced at some time in the future.
At the same time, the reduced-risk products that are on the market and that are coming onto the market provide further opportunities. The manufacture of some of these products, including heat-not-burn devices, is interesting for NDC, Benson said, because the measurement requirements it generates go beyond the on-line moisture and total-volatiles measurements for which NDC’s instrumentation is best-known within the tobacco industry, and it draws on the capabilities of the group’s other three businesses, such as those to do with the measurement of thickness, mass per unit area, line speed and length. These are capabilities that NDC has in its portfolio and that it could use to help manufacturers that wanted to move in new directions. “I think we’re going to see more demanding and interesting measurement requirements from the industry in the future,” Benson said.
The fact that the traditional tobacco industry still has considerable mileage in it was illustrated in February when NDC received from China orders for infrared gauges worth about $1 million. This was business won following on-site performance tests against competitive instrumentation, Benson said, and it indicated that NDC was still attracting significant business based on the requirements of the combustible-products manufacturing industry.
The end of last year saw NDC score a considerable success, too, in another on-site trial, this time at the premises of a major Western tobacco manufacturer that NDC had not supplied previously. On this occasion, its TM710eV total-volatiles, infrared-filter gauge, which was launched at the beginning of last year, was chosen in preference to a diode-array full-spectrum infrared gauge and another filter-based gauge in a direct competitive trial in which the suppliers were not allowed into the factory to tweak their instruments.
The full gamut
Ian Benson
The difference between using a full-spectrum gauge and a filter gauge can be confusing to those not familiar with such technology, in part because both systems examine the full spectrum of infrared radiation at some point in the development process. In the case of the former, the full-spectrum gauge is mounted on-line, and the huge amount of raw data collected is subjected to a complex mathematical data reduction technique that identifies the infrared regions or wavelengths that correspond to the principle variance in respect of, say, total volatiles within the tobacco being measured—those parts of the spectrum that must be “observed” to measure the total volatiles.
In the case of NDC’s filter gauge, samples of the tobacco to be measured on-line are firstly run through full-spectrum infrared spectrometers in the company’s laboratory to identify the fingerprint of the total volatiles in the spectrum—to identify what are the regions or wavelengths of the infrared spectrum that correspond to changes taking place in the total-volatiles content of the tobacco. That fingerprint will be found in only four to six discrete regions, and those are translated into optical filters that are included in the on-line gauge.
“We are used to supplying production people who want a solution, so we’ve done that mathematical processing of the full-spectrum information in our laboratory and put the dedicated solution into our analyzer,” said Benson. “We are using the same modeling techniques as the full-spectrum—diode array—people, but we choose to give the customers a solution that is more process-suitable.
“What I mean by that is that tobacco manufacturers want fast measurements and they want measurements that are not affected by lighting, by ambient humidity and by changes in temperatures in the factory, and using our technology with filters, that can be achieved. NDC has been on-line since day one, which was back in 1970.”
For Benson, on-line is the key word. The problem with some full-spectrum systems was that they required the manufacturer to have a PC in the factory. “This is not really a practical solution,” he said. “You can go into factories where people have been using our instruments for 10 to 15 years and they still look in great condition; they have handled the environment. But I don’t think you can say that about a PC.”
NDC developed its TM710eV total-volatiles gauge in cooperation with major tobacco manufacturers, said Benson, and, since its launch, the uptake of it had been strong. Several international players were using it, obtaining good results and seeing the advantage of measuring total volatiles instead of just moisture.
And it is not only cigarette manufacturers that are taking to the new gauge. A major manufacturer of oral tobacco products has also taken the TM710eV on board. Oral-product tobaccos have higher moisture levels than those of cigarette tobaccos, and the company had previously not been successful in finding an instrument to make the measurements it required. “But we have managed to make very successful measurements,” said Benson. “We have a good reputation for measuring total volatiles in these generally higher-moisture oral products.”
Again, the language, this time used in respect of moisture and total volatiles, can be confusing. Total volatiles take in anything that dries off in laboratory oven tests, which are performed in a factory to provide highly accurate reference data. The tobacco sample is weighed, heated to 100 degrees Celsius for three or 16 hours, depending on the preferred method, and then weighed again. Whatever has been driven off might be called moisture, but the correct term is total volatiles or oven volatiles. A large part of the total volatiles comprises moisture, but another part comprises humectants, casings, flavors, sugars, etc.
Well-positioned
And new-type products introduce other components into the equation. “The thing that has been interesting for us has been the development of heat-not-burn products, which we have been involved in,” said Benson. “We have data that proves we can measure moisture, nicotine, sugars and glycerol, the key components that need to be measured in respect of heat-not-burn tobaccos.”
And while a heat-not-burn tobacco factory might not require the number of gauges found in sophisticated traditional-cigarette plants, it requires a range of different measurements. “That plays well into NDC’s wide range of capabilities,” said Benson. “For instance, we are heavily into the packaging industry; so we have instrumentation to measure mass per unit area and geometric thickness, or caliper, as we would call it—all on-line. We are able to do a range of different measurements for that application; so if the industry continues to go that way, NDC is well-placed to offer the additional measurements that companies are going to need to control the processes involved.”
Not all the measurements that NDC can make have tobacco industry applications at present, but they are there if needed in the future. For instance, NDC has been involved in measuring the thickness and coating weight of the active ingredients of transdermal patches used as nicotine-replacement therapies. And, through its cable and tube business, the company can measure the length of materials and the speed at which they are moving if they are being produced in a web-based process. This is a noncontact method called laser Doppler velocimetry.
Apart from its tobacco, food and bulk business, and its cable and tube business, NDC has, as is mentioned above, a business serving the packaging industry in the fields of extrusion and converting processes and a business serving the metals industry measuring the thickness and flatness of steel or aluminum coils and strips.
