Patent Application
20210016908
The production of smokers' goods in the tobacco industry generally requires the manufacture of various rod-shaped articles. Such rod-shaped articles may be filtered or filter-less cigarettes, cigarette filter portions, cigarillos, cigars, and other, similar articles. The cigarette production process often involves first manufacturing the rod-shaped articles, combining them with other rod-shaped articles if necessary (for example a cigarette portion and a filter portion), and then processing the rod-shaped articles and packaging them.
One popular method of packaging cigarettes is the use of shoulder boxes. These boxes are normally made from stiff cardboard and feature a hinged lid connected to the box. Cigarettes typically lie flat therein, usually in two layers one above the other. Packing loose cigarettes in such a container, especially at high speeds, presents a unique set of problems.
Information relevant to attempts to address these problems can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,325,382. However, this reference suffers from disadvantages such as speed limitations and article orientation errors as the result of articles falling improperly into the waiting packaging. As a result, the process may require additional steps to complete the packaging of the articles before the box can be closed and sealed.
Thus, the disclosure described herein resolves such limitations and establishes an overall improvement over gravity-fed packaging systems for rod-shaped articles.
In one exemplary embodiment, an apparatus which may facilitate the placing of rod-like articles, such as cigarettes, into waiting packaging, which includes a space in which articles may be inserted, this space described by a base, a plurality of side walls, and a sheet of deformable material which is secured to the apparatus such as by vacuum force provided via vacuum openings located in the side walls.
In another exemplary embodiment, a method by which rod-like articles, such as cigarettes, may be placed into a packaging element, which includes placing said articles into the space of an apparatus, placing a sheet of deformable material or a packaging element in such a way to form an additional boundary to this space, securing this deformable sheet to the apparatus, such as by vacuum force, reorienting the apparatus such that the articles are supported by this deformable sheet, and placing the articles and/or the deformable sheet into a waiting packaging element.
Advantages of embodiments of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of the exemplary embodiments thereof, which description should be considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which like numerals indicate like elements, in which:
Aspects of the invention are disclosed in the following description and related drawings directed to specific embodiments of the invention. Alternate embodiments may be devised without departing from the spirit or the scope of the invention. Additionally, well-known elements of exemplary embodiments of the invention will not be described in detail or will be omitted so as not to obscure the relevant details of the invention. Further, to facilitate an understanding of the description discussion of several terms used herein follows.
As used herein, the word “exemplary” means “serving as an example, instance or illustration.” The embodiments described herein are not limiting, but rather are exemplary only. It should be understood that the described embodiments are not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments. Moreover, the terms “embodiments of the invention”, “embodiments” or “invention” do not require that all embodiments of the invention include the discussed feature, advantage or mode of operation.
Throughout the current description of the invention commonly accepted terms may be utilized. For example, “vacuum” may be understood as the application of differences in air pressure to apply forces to objects, including, but not limited to, partial vacuums and complete vacuums.
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The foregoing description and accompanying figures illustrate the principles, preferred embodiments and modes of operation of the invention. However, the invention should not be construed as being limited to the particular embodiments discussed above. Additional variations of the embodiments discussed above will be appreciated by those skilled in the art (for example, features associated with certain configurations of the invention may instead be associated with any other configurations of the invention, as desired).
Therefore, the above-described embodiments should be regarded as illustrative rather than restrictive. Accordingly, it should be appreciated that variations to those embodiments can be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention as defined by the following claims.
