Tobacco cutter KT 2up & KT 3
Maximized machine availability
Increased cutting precision
Improved filling power
Less dust
Significantly quieter production
Continual availability of spare parts
TECHNOLOGY WITH HIGH CUSTOMER VALUE
For more than 170 years, the Luxembourg family business Heintz van Landewyck has been producing and selling tobac-co products across the globe. Over the years, Landewyck has relied on Hauni, the world's largest supplier to the tobacco industry, for its Primary technology. The German company is currently impressing the long-standing Luxembourg company by successfully upgrading two of its tobacco cutters.
The Landewyck group has close to 1,800 employees
and is headquartered in the Luxembourg neighbourhood
of Hollerich, site of one of its two Luxembourg factories.
The second is in Ettelbrück, 30 kilometres away.
The company also has production facilities in Germany,
Hungary, Andorra and Gran Canaria.
Together, the factories produce more than eight billion
cigarettes, eight billion tubes and 5,000 tons of rolling
tobacco per year, and export their products to more than
40 countries.
THE OLD HOMELANDNew location in
The company headquarters in Hollerich, lo-cated in one of Luxembourg's first Art Deco buildings, is surrounded by a large park with old trees and a historic swimming pool, which the employees and their families can use – even on weekends. This is just one example of the importance that Landewyck, one of the largest employers in the region, places on the well-being of its employees and a familial working atmosphere.
But while the ambience is idyllic, the logistics are com-
plicated. Dispersed across the company's 6.3 hectare
premises in Hollerich are its Primary processing,
Secondary production, in-house printing department
for cardboard packaging as well as its raw tobacco and
finished goods warehouses. Filters, on the other hand,
are produced in Ettelbrück, where Secondary production
also takes place. "We have to move some pallets up to
twelve times", explains Aloyse Metzen, Head of Primary
at Landewyck since 2006, about the logistical effort. The
road network is also everything other than optimal for the
many daily lorries. "An industrial site in the middle of a
city is no longer contemporary due to noise and emission
levels", says Metzen.
All that will soon change: brought on by the plans of the
City of Luxembourg to revive its tram network, whose
rails are to run through the company premises in a few
years' time, Landewyck has decided to consolidate its
two locations, Hollerich and Ettelbrück, in Erpeldingen/
Sauer near Diekirch. The relocation is scheduled to be
completed in two phases by 2020 – first Secondary and
Packaging will move to the new site and then Primary will
follow approximately two years later.
The invested amount is around 60 million euros. "As a
family business, we are deeply rooted in Luxembourg.
Since the Grand Duchy belongs to our company's foun-
dation, investing in securing our future in Luxembourg
goes without saying", states Georges Krombach, Head
of Marketing and a direct descendent of the company's
founder, Jean-Pierre Heintz. "In so doing, we aim to opti-
mize our productivity further in order to maintain our mar-
ket share and enter new markets for continued growth."
According to Metzen, Head of Primary, the company
wants to use the new site to "improve work processes
and ergonomics, increase the level of automation, boost
efficiency, optimize infrastructure connectivity and
prepare for possible modernization and expansion in the
future." In the process, Landewyck is actively involving its
employees in the design of the new location and prepar-
ing them for the future by offering opportunities to retrain
and obtain additional qualifications.
"Improve work processes and ergonomics, increase
the level of automation, boost efficiency, optimize
infrastructure connectivity and prepare for possible
modernization and expansion in the future."
COMPETITIVENESSHigh tech for
For Landewyck, an innovative, high-ly automated plant and machine park is an essential prerequisite to ensure competitiveness at the high-est level.
The plants in Luxembourg can reach a peak production
of 45 to 50 million cigarettes per day. This achievement
can in part be attributed to several KT 2 tobacco cutters
from Hauni, which cut tobacco mixtures with a cutting
width of 0.8 to 1.0 millimeters. "When Hauni brought an
upgrade to its reliable cutter on the market, it immediately
piqued our interest", reports Metzen, who has worked for
Landewyck over the last 19 years.
"Since we regard optimal technical equipment as funda-
mental to our success, we have decided to upgrade two
KT 2s and have fared quite well with regard to tobacco
and cost savings as well as improvements to quality."
The conventional KT 2 has a knife advance generated
by a gear unit, which advances and grinds the knives
automatically – regardless of whether or not it is neces-
sary. In contrast, the KT 3 sharpens the knives depend-
ing on their level of wear, just like the KT 2 upgrade. After
the upgrade, the KT 2up has the same functions as the
KT 3 in other respects as well, and can grind the knives
sharper than the KT 2. For both, Hauni engineers replace
the mechanical knife advance with an individual drive.
This drives the advance of the knives flexibly. The grinder
unit is also equipped with individual drives that can be
assigned the optimal parameters for the given blend. "We
can therefore set the machine exactly to the specific re-
quirements of a tobacco type and to our production", ex-
plains Metzen, who, by his own admission as an energy
engineering graduate, enjoys working with the intricacies
of technology. The advantages of the new cutter design
are obvious for Uwe Bausch, a development engineer at
Hauni: "The knives now last longer and are sharper than
in the previous model. They not only have to be replaced
less often but they also save on personnel resources and
increase the machine's availability. The grinding wheel
can even be replaced within a few minutes during a short
stop in production. Moreover, the operator can continu-
ally monitor the sharpness of the knives and set the blend
parameter or use the saved recipe parameter."
Metzen states that while providing exact statistical
evidence of the improvements is difficult, "across all
influencing factors, the improvements themselves leave
no doubt." These also include the filling power and
consequently the cigarette quality. The tobacco cutters
were set to the ideal operating point for Landewyck,
i.e. the best possible tobacco quality when taking into
account the longest possible service life for consumable
parts. Comparatively, the knives last up to four times
longer, the grinding wheels up to three times longer. If the
consumable materials have to be replaced, the upgrade
will save 30 percent of the time needed for the knives
and 20 percent of the time needed for the wheels. Even
the grinding procedure has improved considerably. The
sharper, cleanly ground knives provide even more ben-
efits to the production process: less dust is generated,
fewer unwanted grinding products end up in the cigarette
tobacco, the cutting precision increases and the machine
is significantly quieter.
"Since we regard optimal technical equipment as
fundamental to our success, we have decided to
upgrade two KT 2 and have fared quite well with
regard to tobacco and cost savings as well as
improvements to quality."
Hauni carried out the upgrades right there on
Landewyck's premises. For the first KT 2up, the plant
remained in the production line; for the second, the
upgrade was carried out in the in-house workshop.
Landewyck makes a point of involving its own employ-
ees in every plant conversion. "Since our people have
to know how the machines work in order to operate
and maintain them optimally, the Hauni specialists have
trained our technicians, who will look after the machines
later on", explains Metzen, who is not only the Head of
Primary but also responsible for Technical Service.
Generally, Hauni also performs upgrades on the KT 2 to-
bacco cutter in subsidiaries worldwide. All parts that are
not used in the knife unit or switch cabinet can then be
maintained as well. "This guarantees that the top results
that we strive for are achieved in practice", says Bausch.
"Moreover, the upgrade solves the problem that suitable
spare parts are becoming increasing difficult to procure
due to the fact that some manufacturers have discontin-
ued lines of products installed in the KT 2."
UPGRADESTailor-made
In the course of the upgrade, the
knife unit, knife drum, grinding unit
and switch cabinet are replaced.
Depending on the age, condition
and customer requirements for the
machine, Hauni specialists devise a
customized upgrade.
"We decided to make the investment since we knew from
our experience with the KT 2 update that we would im-
prove our production with the new KT 3 with regard to
machine performance, flexibility, plant availability, efficacy
and quality of the cut tobacco", said Metzen. The sophis-
ticated technology in the KT 3 contains many improve-
ments. At the same time, the machine's operation has
become easier, since the KT 3 is more accessible than its
predecessor and is therefore easier to clean and main-
tain. The new digital tobacco cutter fits perfectly into the
"intelligent factory" of tomorrow. "We have had a high level
of automation in our production for a long time now", re-
ports Metzen. Automated data acquisition ensures that
the energy consumption of a plant, the tobacco recipes
used or other machine settings can be called up and
controlled with the press of a button. The interaction of
man and machine belongs to day-to-day production.
"It is our job to look closely at which aspects of 'Industry
4.0' make sense for us and which don't", says Metzen.
"The goal of every type of network is to optimize process-
es. At our company, a robot can handle the boxes and
make the lives of our employees easier. But total automa-
tion is not possible." After the successful introduction of
SAP at the beginning of 2017, implementing the SAP MII
module – Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence – will
further improve data acquisition and network connec-
tions between the production plants. "The bidirectional
transmission of data involved with the intelligent factory
poses new challenges to plant manufacturers such as
Hauni", says Metzen. "They must provide an open and
yet secure interface."
KT 3 TOBACCO CUTTERNew
In addition to the two upgrades,
Landewyck has also invested in a
completely new KT 3 tobacco cut-
ter that cuts a broad spectrum of
tobacco types, from leaf tobaccos
to sensitive semi-oriental tobacco
through to 100 percent recon.
"We decided to invest in the KT 3 because we knew
from our experience with the KT 2 upgrade that we
would improve our production with regard to machine
performance, flexibility, plant availability, efficacy and
quality of the cut tobacco."
1847 Jean-Pierre Heintz founds a tobacco factory
with a shop at the age of 25 in the centre of
the City of Luxembourg. He names the com-
pany after his wife, Joséphine van Landew-
yck, since Dutch tobacco has an outstanding
reputation.
1897 Joseph Heintz, son of Jean-Pierre Heintz,
starts up a new factory at a site in the Hol-
lerich neighborhood in close proximity to the
central station, which is still the heart of the
company. There, 250 employees produce
100,000 to 300,000 cigarettes per week.
1925 Landewyck founds a second site
in Trier.
1939 Landewyck takes over the smoking tobacco
and snuff company "Fixmer" in Ettelbrück
and becomes a company with limited liability
(GmbH). The first big cigarette brand from
Landewyck is Africaine. Over the subsequent
decades, famous brands such as Maryland,
Lexington, Kent, Newport, Ducal, Bentley,
Elixyr, Che, Austin and Maya followed.
1951 Landewyck establishes a subsidiary in
Belgium.
LANDEWYCK'S HISTORY
1964 In Ettelbrück, a second factory
in Luxembourg is inaugurated.
1996 From now on, the branch office in Trier oper-
ates as an independent company with limited
liability (GmbH).
2003 The Landewyck Group S.à r.l. is founded, which
manages the business and is chiefly responsible
for corporate strategy and development.
2009 Foundation of Landewyck France.
2012 Foundation of Landewyck Spain.