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Tag: Montrade

  • Poised for Growth

    Poised for Growth

    Antonella Giannini (left) and Alberto Monzon
    (Photos: Montrade)

    Montrade is expanding its portfolio and manufacturing facilities.

    By Stefanie Rossel

    There are clear signs that Montrade is continuing its remarkable growth: In the corner of the tobacco equipment manufacturer’s bright conference room, there are samples of tiles, wall coverings and other construction materials. The Bologna-based company is about to build new premises. About 200 meters from its current 4,000-square-meter site, it will construct an additional 7,000-square-meter shop floor, which is supposed to be finalized by the beginning of next year.

    “It will become our main company building with offices,” explains Alberto Monzoni, Montrade’s managing director. Together with his wife, Antonella Giannini, who serves as the company’s sales director, he founded Montrade in 2004. “The assembly workshop in the new building will have a bigger dimension because we’re growing also in terms of our portfolio as we are adding new machine models, and it will be fully dedicated to the assembly of our machines,” says Monzoni.

    The current site, built in 2010 when the company had outgrown its original rented offices, will in the future accommodate a warehouse and tooling capacity. It already hosts the company’s spare parts manufacturing center, which is equipped with a CNC machine and will become a preferred sub-supplier for Montrade machinery after the expansion. The building is also home to a startup company, with a team dedicated to the development of special sensors, mainly for the inline quality control of filters that Montrade installs in its machines or sells as part of retrofit kits for its equipment. “The team will get more space with the option to increase capability. Inline control is important as high speed requires high quality.” 

    Monzoni says it’s essential that Montrade, which exclusively supplies the tobacco industry, enlarges its footprint. “Multinational companies have become an essential part of our customer base, and they require a certain capacity.”

    With 120 employees, the company presently manufactures about 30 lines per year. Montrade offers a wide range of equipment ranging from filter-making to packaging for combustible cigarettes and heated-tobacco products (HTPs). “It’s vital for us to meet the new market requirement of flexibility,” says Giannini. “Due to the increasing amount of products, the complexity of the tobacco industry is intensifying. Montrade covers everything from roll-your-own [RYO]/make-your-own [MYO] to packing lines, always with a view to sustainability.”

    Environmentally friendly filter solutions, Giannini and Monzoni believe, will be the next big thing in the industry. Discarded cigarette filters, 98 percent of which presently consist of cellulose acetate (CA), a bio-based polymer that takes years to disintegrate, are the world’s most littered items. They pollute the environment with microplastics. In July 2021, the European Union banned plastic items such as plates, cutlery, straws or cotton bud sticks but exempted cigarette filters. Instead, tobacco manufacturers will be required to cover the costs of consumer awareness-raising campaigns and extended producer responsibility schemes starting in December. There are rumors, though, that the EU might ban CA filters in the future. Giannini considers it more likely that the EU will raise taxes on polluting items instead. The tobacco industry is taking the issue seriously by developing paper filters, a trend that Montrade has seen reflected in the demand for corresponding machinery.

    Efficient Paper Crimping

    One of Montrade’s bestsellers is a new version of a paper crimper that was originally developed in 2010. Paper is crimped with a pair of rollers that penetrate the paper band without cutting the fibers. The goal of the process is to get the maximum volume so that when the rod is made, the filter doesn’t have any holes; it should look as much as possible like a filter made from CA.

    Driven by customer requests, Montrade recently redesigned the crimping head of its machine to enable the manufacture of paper filters with similar properties to CA filters. “With our new technology, we have achieved excellent results,” Monzoni says. “We save 15 [percent] to 20 percent of paper compared to traditional crimpers, which means that we create a very homogeneous and stable filter with no variation in pressure drop and superb quality. Not only does this reduce cost; there is also an advantage for taste. The retention of paper is much higher than that of CA, which means that tar and nicotine will be reduced. If you use less paper, you will get less of the typical taste of a paper filter. For better machinability in the downstream process, we have increased the hardness.”

    Importantly, Montrade’s machine works at the same speed as filter makers for acetate tow, splicing automatically and never reducing the speed of production, according to Giannini.

    As an alternative to the paper crimper, the company offers the standalone crimping module as a retrofit package. Within 15 minutes, it turns a conventional CA filter maker into a paper filter maker. “If CA filters get banned, it doesn’t make sense economically to waste so many machines and replace them with new ones as the rod forming basically does the same job no matter whether there’s CA tow or crimped paper at the backend,” says Giannini. “The crimping module breathes new life into the existing rod forming, just giving it a new material feeding. We are getting a lot of positive response from our customers; you can see that this is the direction they will go. Many brands are making trials and have set up smoking panels with this new material.”

    While demand for paper filter makers is increasing, Monzoni emphasizes that the trend is still at an early stage. “Paper filters are currently used for brand variants that appeal to consumers with a more ecological orientation,” he says. “The big brands are not ready yet. One [company] is prepared to start with one brand; others are still studying the subject.”

    The situation is different in the smaller RYO/MYO category, which has become a forerunner in paper filter tips. “Sustainable filters are common, and the consumer likes them,” says Giannini. “In cigarettes, we’re still a bit behind. But the few brands with sustainable filters presently available are growing.”

    Sustainable Solutions

    Montrade’s portfolio reflects the tobacco industry’s current transformation that not only involves reduced-risk products but also non-nicotine offerings. For the rapidly growing cannabis market, Montrade is developing several products, including a cone-making machine.

    The company is also exploring the potential of paper beyond common solid filter plug production. In partnership with a big tobacco firm, the machinery manufacturer has created a new packaging line capable of producing soft packs without plastic film. The humidity in the pack is preserved through an innovative seaming technology that reduced both cost and environmental impact.

    Furthermore, the company uses the crimped paper to manufacture a hollow tube that is equivalent to hollow acetate filters. “Turning crimped paper into a hollow tube filter has long been the dream of filter designers,” notes Giannini. “Our customer wanted to change from CA filters to paper to have a full sustainable portfolio of paper filters. We have made it possible by offering paper tubes and hard paper filters. Our hollow paper tubes have a wall thickness of 0.6 mm to 1.5 mm, and they are very similar to CA filter tubes.” Montrade also has a machine that allows it to produce charcoal paper filters, which are also known as Dalmatians.

    Used in combustible cigarettes, hollow filters make elegant mouthpieces. In HTPs, they are highly functional, serving as either a flow restrictor or an expansion chamber and playing a fundamental role in aerosol cooling and accelerating. “The performance of HTPs is driven by tubes,” Giannini says.

    Drawing from its experience with crimped paper filter rod manufacture, Montrade has developed a rod-forming machine for the tobacco element in HTP consumables. The cast leaf that is used in the sticks presents a challenge in processing, says Monzoni. “It’s fragile and tends to be sticky, so it needs to be treated in a special way,” he says. The underlying concept of our rod maker, however, works for all bobbins or webs—you just need to adapt the technology to treat different materials.”

    More design possibilities for HTPs arise with Montrade’s coaxial flexible platform, which represents a new way of making filters. “Instead of a single process, our machine has two garnitures and is capable of making one filter or tube inside of the other,” says Giannini. “It’s highly performing and super flexible, allowing for a continuous process or a combination of individual filter segments inside and a wrapping with a continuous material, such as paper or CA, outside, in one go.”

    Customers’ biggest investments these days are in HTPs, according to Giannini. “There is still a lot to be discovered on the production side of HTPs. Coaxial technology is one opportunity to open the scenario to different production designs. HTPs are the future. We strongly believe that they will make up the majority of nicotine consumption in the future.”

    Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
  • The Virtuous Loop

    The Virtuous Loop

    Illustration: Hauni

    Reducing waste and saving energy in manufacturing boosts revenues, improves customer satisfaction and reduces environmental damage.

    By George Gay

    Filter cigarettes and the hinge-lid packs in which, on many markets, most cigarettes are sold have been available in similar forms for 60 years to 70 years, and, during that time, their manufacture has been guided by increasingly specialized materials suppliers, brand owners and machinery builders that have become environmentally aware, commercially astute and technically advanced. So, on being asked to write a story looking at what tobacco machinery suppliers are doing to reduce the usage of energy and the creation of waste during the operation of their machines by tobacco manufacturers, my first thought was that perhaps, after so many years of development, there wasn’t much more that could be achieved.

    I needn’t have been concerned. While the central objects of the exercise, the cigarette and pack, remain, to the uninitiated at least, much the same, the focus and interests of machinery suppliers have broadened to take in everything from how their employees get from home to work through production materials to the new industrial revolution. There is even a focus by one company on the efficiencies of factories that might or might not use its machinery.

    Aiger recently installed a 350 MW solar power system on the roof of a new manufacturing bay. (Photo: Aiger)

    Nurturing a Mindset

    But what about the bit concerning how your employees get from home to work? How does that fit into the grand scheme of things? I hear you ask. Well, according to Courtland Macduff, Aiger’s sales director for Asia, this has to do with the idea that if you are going to improve the operational efficiencies of the equipment you offer in respect of such things as energy usage and waste, you need to build such thinking into the ethos of the company. Aiger had set up, for instance, a carpool system that allows its employees to get to work using less gasoline and creating fewer carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions than they would if they all traveled alone. Four years ago, the company introduced efficient waste management systems to deal with everything from machining waste to general consumables. And, on a larger scale, it recently installed a 350 MW solar power system on the roof of a new manufacturing bay, allowing it to function as a smart factory in which heating and lighting are based on zone scheduling, a system that has provided for a 20 percent saving in energy costs.

    As Macduff said during an email exchange, saving energy and reducing waste worked by example, so now, every design engineer was focused on smart solutions aimed at providing better machine performance because the faster a manufacturer was able to operate with the highest uptime, the less waste was generated. But this had to involve a joint effort. Machinery manufacturers could have only a limited impact on operational waste if factories didn’t maintain high efficiencies by optimizing their procedures and materials.

    But no operation could be perfect, so, at the same time, Aiger machinery “digested” rejects as far as possible by recycling tobacco shorts and reclaiming the tobacco. End-of-bobbin machine production wastage had been reduced as had glue application.

    In reducing energy usage, designers were, for instance, working on the optimization of drive selections and had already minimized the power consumption of heating elements by using a higher level of temperature control and new insulation materials to protect the areas heated to high temperatures, which was one of the major power drains. At the same time, designers were constantly looking to incorporate new technologies.

    In this regard, Macduff made the interesting comment that while new technologies were welcome, they came at a price, so they had to be introduced at the right time and for the right reasons. Tobacco companies would not pay more simply to have a machine that used less energy. Output mattered at the end of the day, and high efficiency was not negotiable.

    There was something of a trade-off to be made here. While modern machinery was generally faster and more reliable and consistently produced better quality products than was the case in the past, such improvements did not necessarily lend themselves to energy savings because the newer machinery used more controls, more automation and more drives.

    But there are other areas where savings of one type or another can be made, often working in conjunction with materials suppliers and tobacco manufacturers. Factory floor layouts could be optimized, said Macduff; optical fibers could replace cables; new, harder-wearing materials could ensure that parts had longer lives; and the 3D printing of parts at customer sites could cut the impact of transporting such materials. Coreless bobbins could be introduced, filters and packaging materials that are more environmentally friendly could be brought in and the use of plastics could be reduced in respect of packaging materials for tobacco products and even machinery exports.

    Finally, Macduff said Aiger was one of the leaders in machinery manufacturing flexibility, and the modular concepts engineered into its machinery helped to keep efficiencies high in the face of brand changes, which always created a degree of startup waste.

    Montrade now offers technology to help tobacco companies to manufacture plastic-free filters. (Photo: Montrade)

    Win, Win, Win

    Meanwhile, Montrade’s senior sales manager, Emanuele Massari, said his company’s machines were designed so as to map product flow because the focus was on maximizing product quality while minimizing material consumption and waste. The company had a division dedicated to the research and development of sensor and process control systems that, once integrated into its machines or even those of other companies, enhanced productivity optimally. “It is an essential step of the migration toward industry 4.0,” he said- in what I took to be a reference to the sorts of new processes that focus on interconnectivity, automation and machine learning.

    Artificial intelligence provided all Montrade’s sensors with auto-learning skills, so systems improved themselves autonomously, he said. And such autonomous maintenance initiatives helped provide for an increase in machinery MTBFs (mean time between failures), which, in turn, led to “a righteous path of real sustainability.” “This synergy allows us to optimize and reduce the material and energy consumption and the waste of spare parts,” said Massari.

    Sustainability was said to be one of the main drivers at Montrade because working to reduce waste and save energy created what Massari described as a “win-win-win virtuous loop.” The first win was that customers could use Montrade’s equipment to manufacture more high-quality products while spending less, thus increasing their revenues and consumer satisfaction. The second win saw Montrade’s business boosted because its customers were satisfied. And the third win meant that the environment and, consequently, the global community profited from the reduced impact of the tobacco industry.

    Massari said that his company’s machines were designed to constantly monitor the consumption of utilities with an eye on reducing usage. The levels of electrical consumption and compressed airflow rates, etc., were always available to view on human-machine interfaces, which was a standard feature not an optional one.

    Another issue on which Montrade had been focusing its sustainability efforts concerned the materials used on its machines. The company collaborated closely with its customers and with materials suppliers to rethink the product as more eco-friendly and more fit for the final consumer. Recent examples of this approach could be seen in the company’s machines for producing biodegradable cigarette filters and paper tubes. A unique crimping technology allowed conventional acetate filters to be replaced with paper ones while reducing by about 20 percent the paper consumption typical of other machines available on the market.

    As well as offering new filter-making equipment, Montrade also revamps older equipment to produce eco-friendly products. “For instance, we offer our paper crimper in a free-standing configuration to retrofit existing filter makers to convert them to make plastic-free filters,” said Massari. “In the same way, we have also recently developed a wide range of conversion kits for existing packing machines to reduce the wrapping materials and/or replace them with plastic-free ones.”

    The Holistic View

    Another way of looking at reducing waste is to examine just tobacco waste but over complete operations. Marco Castro, global head of Hauni Advanced Services (formerly Hauni Consulting), said that while the whole tobacco industry was currently working on reducing waste, his division had, in July 2020, set itself the ambitious challenge of approaching this objective in a different way. And, in doing so, it had pioneered a completely original approach, tobacco waste prevention (TWP), by developing an integrated methodology for preventing waste at critical points in green leaf threshing plants (GLTs) and during primary processing and secondary manufacture.

    Interestingly, TWP can be applied to all production facilities regardless of the machine base. “Our approach is strictly based on the existing conditions of our customers’ brands,” said Castro in announcing the initiative. “This enables them to prevent waste quickly and successfully, maintaining these gains over the long term.”

    TWP is said to offer immediate, measurable improvements, and figures said to have been achieved already in customer projects are impressive: The reduction of waste generation in GLT processes is up to 50 percent, in the primary it’s up to 70 percent and in the secondary up to 60 percent.

    “The first step is to quantify the potential for waste prevention at the customer’s site,” said Castro. “This is the basis on which we implement our TWP methodology, which aims to achieve the physical limits for waste prevention for the respective combination of blends, brands and equipment as quickly as possible.”

    The approaches adopted as part of TWP are said not only to prevent waste but also to reduce production complexity and technical costs by standardizing blend/brand and equipment combinations where they are relevant to waste.

    The starting point for every TWP project is the manufacturer’s own production facility. “This means that we not only strictly consider their specific blends and brands but also implement the TWP specifically for their existing production equipment,” said Castro. “No investments in equipment are necessary to achieve this new, optimized level of waste and costs—at least initially. Of course, on request, we can advise our customers on the potential of machine upgrades or other changes to their equipment while focusing on waste prevention.”

    What might well appeal to tobacco manufacturers is that the price of implementing TWP is performance-based, something that Hauni says underlines its belief in its new service. “We are certain that we can deliver the savings we promise our customers after quantifying the waste situation,” said Castro. “That is why payment for this service is performance-based. If we achieve less than we promise, the price is reduced. If the improvement falls below a set level, our clients pay nothing.”

    George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.