Patent Application
20060180166
The present invention relates to a method and a unit for testing production quality in a line for manufacturing tobacco products.
The invention is applicable to the art field of systems for the manufacture of tobacco products, and of cigarettes in particular, comprising both cigarette maker and filter tip attachment machines, albeit no limitation is implied.
More exactly, the invention is concerned with testing the various characteristics or properties of cigarettes sampled at the outfeed of the line during the course of the production cycle.
Among the characteristics of cigarettes subjected to such tests, certain items are notably important: the weight, the consistency of the filler at the cut ends, the degree of ventilation, the quality of the print, the integrity of the paper wrap, and the soundness of the join between filter and cigarette.
Conventionally, sample cigarettes taken at the outfeed end of the manufacturing line for quality control purposes will undergo tests conducted by a specialist operator who selects single cigarettes at regular intervals. The samples are subjected to a quality control procedure implemented in part visually and manually by the operator, and in part instrumentally by dedicated testing devices.
In practice, the procedure in question serves to verify whether or not the different characteristics of the sample cigarettes are within given limits, which in the case of certain characteristics, at least, will be determined by the experience and judgement of the operator.
In the event of at least one among the tested characteristics failing to meet the standards of acceptance, the operator will identify those parts of the cigarette maker or the filter tip attachment machine to which any defects found in the finished product are attributable, and proceed to take the appropriate action.
It will be appreciated from the foregoing that the quality control procedure in question depends to a large extent on the experience and judgement of the operator. Consequently, the evaluation of certain characteristics presented by the cigarettes is necessarily subjective and may not always be made uniformly, even within the scope of a single production run.
The object of the present invention is to provide a method and a unit whereby all the characteristics of products turned out by a manufacturing line of the above noted type are evaluated on the basis of rigorously objective criteria that remain constant over time.
The stated object is realized, according to the present invention, in a method for testing the quality of production in a line for manufacturing tobacco products that consists in sampling a given number of finished products taken from the outfeed stage of the line, then subjecting each of the sampled products to a step, performed by a testing unit, in which the quality of a predetermined number of characteristics is evaluated in such a way as to obtain a plurality of signals each reflecting the quality of a single characteristic.
The stated object is realized likewise in a unit for testing the quality of production in a line for manufacturing tobacco products, typically a line equipped with a cigarette maker and a filter tip attachment machine, comprising a unit such as will test the quality of a given number of characteristics presented by single products sampled at the outfeed stage of the line and generate output signals reflecting the quality assignable respectively to each of the single characteristics of each sampled product, also a central processing and sorting unit by which the output signals are received from the testing unit, processed, and used to create video displayable graphs.
The invention will now be described in detail, by way of example, with the aid of the accompanying drawings, in which:
With reference to
The cigarette maker 3 incorporates a plurality of devices and machine units and, more exactly, is equipped at the upstream end with a carding unit 5 in receipt of tobacco from an infeed hopper (not illustrated); proceeding downstream, the tobacco is taken up onto a carding drum 6 and projected by an impeller roller 7, operating in conjunction with the carding drum 6, into a descent duct or chute 8, thence onto a belt conveyor 9 and into an ascent duct or chimney 10.
The top end of the chimney 10 is enclosed by an aspirating belt 11 on which the tobacco particles collect and are formed gradually into a continuous stream 12 that will ultimately provide the filler for the cigarettes 2.
The stream 12 of tobacco is released onto a strip of paper 13 decoiling from a roll 14 along a path that passes initially through a printing device 15, and advances into a garniture section 16 where it is enveloped longitudinally by the aforementioned strip 13 to form a continuous cigarette rod 17.
The continuous rod 17 is fed toward and through a cutting station 18 where it will be divided up by a rotary cutter device 19 into discrete segments of predetermined and constant length, and more exactly into sticks 20 of length measuring twice the length of a stick making up a single cigarette 2.
Numeral 21 denotes a device by which the double length sticks 20 are transferred, through a set of infeed rollers 22 forming part of the filter tip attachment machine 4, to a cutting station 23 where each successive double length stick 20 is separated into two single cigarette sticks 24 by the action of a roller 25 and a disc cutter 26.
The single cigarette sticks 24 are directed from the roller 25 of the cutting station 23, first onto a distancing roller 27 on which the two sticks 24 separated by each cutting stroke are spaced apart axially one from the other, then onto an assembling roller 28, whereupon a double length filter plug 29 supplied by a respective feed unit, denoted 30 in its entirety, is interposed between the two single sticks 24 of each advancing pair.
The resulting assemblies, each consisting of two single cigarette sticks 24 and one double length filter plug 29 placed between them, are released from the assembling roller 28 onto a roller 31 that forms part of a finishing station 32, comprising a unit 33 by which tipping papers 34 are cut and fed to the selfsame station 32, and a rolling device 35 such as will take up the stick/double-filter/stick assemblies and the tipping papers 34 and roll each successive tipping paper 34 about a corresponding assembly to fashion a double length cigarette 2.
The double length cigarettes 2 are fed by way of an intermediate roller 36 to a cutter device 37 and divided by a cutting stroke made through the double length filter 29 to generate two successions of single filter cigarettes 2 appearing identical one to another.
The two successions of filter cigarettes 2 are directed toward an outfeed stage 38 of the filter tip attachment machine 4, advancing first onto an overturning roller 39 by which a single succession of cigarettes 2 is established, then passing onto a final train of rollers denoted 40 in its entirety, along which the cigarettes 2 will undergo further finishing steps of a familiar nature.
As illustrated in
Referring again to
The unit 46 in question is designed to test the quality of a plurality of characteristics presented by the single cigarette 2, and in particular, the integrity of the paper wrap, the consistency of the end fill, the degree of ventilation obtained with the holes pierced by the laser generator 44, the quality of the print, the weight, and so forth.
With reference in particular to
Once the quality testing unit 46 has inspected a significant number of single cigarettes 2 (say 10, for example) selected at the outfeed station 38, the CPU 49 will receive signals relating to each of the characteristics tested, which it processes and outputs in the form of graphs, as illustrated by way of example in
The CPU 49 comprises processing means 54 by which each signal received from the testing unit 46 is assigned a value on a predetermined scale common to all of the tested characteristics.
In the graphs of
Observing the graphs relative to a succession of cigarettes 2 sampled from the outfeed stage 38, the quality of production as reflected in each of the tested characteristics will be readily discernible. Self-evidently, a substantially flat line indicates that the quality of the tested characteristic has remained substantially constant over time, whilst an upward trend toward the higher numbers on the scale indicates an improvement and a downward trend indicates a deterioration.
In the latter instance, the information provided will enable the operator to take corrective action on the devices of the line 1 to which the negative trend is attributable.
The action in question might occur automatically, triggered by feedback control circuits indicated schematically in
The CPU 49 further comprises sorting means 57 by which the signals reflecting the characteristics of each single cigarette 2 tested can be represented as numerical values in a table as illustrated in
Accordingly, each column in the table of
The central data processing and sorting unit 49 is equipped with computing means 58 able to produce an overall assessment of the tested characteristics for each cigarette 2 sampled. In the example of
On the basis of the overall assessments produced by the computing means 58, the processing means 54 are able to generate a graph of the type shown in
It will be seen that the line 1 is equipped in conventional manner with a succession of devices serving to monitor the cigarette-making process, and devices serving to reject any cigarettes 2 of which the characteristics may not register within prescribed limits. Thus, all of the cigarettes 2 scrutinized by the quality testing unit 46 will be identifiable, at least in theory, as conforming to an acceptance threshold defined in the graphs of
Thus, with the graphs described above providing an index as to the quality of a given production cycle, the manufacturer will be able, on the basis of these same graphs, to select the most suitable market for a particular type of production lot.
Accordingly, selection means might be installed at the outfeed stage 38 of the line 1, with the end in view of organizing the tobacco products into distinct lots destined for different markets.
As illustrated in
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| BO2005A000073 | Feb 2005 | IT | national |
