Reconditioned Packaging Machinery for the Tobacco Industry

Marden Edwards carries out very little re-building of its own machines for the tobacco, or indeed any other, industry.  Marden Edwards packaging machines represent good value for money and in fact the price of a re-conditioned overwrapping machine, otherwise known as a cellophane wrapping machine, can often be close to that of a new machine.

Marden Edwards only re-furbishes its own machinery. If a customer is looking for a complete cigarette packing complex, then it would not be purchased from Marden Edwards. In this case, the overwrapper, be it refurbished or new, is likely to be supplied by the supplier of the complete line.For example, from CME or ITM both of whom supply both new and re-conditioned systems.

The purpose of this article is to answer the question as to why ME does not carry out much re-conditioning and to explore what options are offered to customers instead.

Re-conditioning compared to second hand purchase

It is important to define re-conditioning. Re-conditioning is sometimes also known as re-manufacturing which is often a more suitable description of the process, especially if new controls systems and upgrades are added during the process.

To produce a high quality reconditioned machine it is necessary to completely strip a donor machine back to its component parts before re-placement with new parts, as necessary, and then re-assembly. If this is not done, then the piece of equipment is simply being sold second-hand instead of re-manufactured or re-conditioned.

Suitability for reconditioning

The viability for re-conditioning tobacco machinery is very dependent on the new purchase price of the equipment.For example, whilst it could very well be worth re-conditioning equipment which costs £100's of thousands of pounds new it is not so viable re-conditioning equipment that costs £10's of thousands of new.

The cost of the re-conditioning process, especially the careful disassembly and component inspection of the donor machine, can be an expensive operation.A new-build machine can be much less expensive to assemble since there is no cost of disassembly and only new components of a known quality are used.

In service maintenance

All Marden Edwards machines ever built are still supported in the field for spares and service.This may lessen the need for re-conditioning since everything that is necessary to maintain the as new performance of the machine can be carried out via a regular inspection and maintenance schedule.

In service upgrade

Upgrading a machine in production, for example by adding printed film registration, jumbo sized tear tape dispenser system or adding a stand alone shrink tightener heat shrink system to produce skin tight wraps, does not require the machine to be returned to Marden Edwards.

Instead, the components required can simply be sent to the customer and then installed using either the customer's own engineering staff or for fully trained, Marden Edwards service personnel to carry out the work instead.

One very popular upgrade is the replacement of old, DC motor drive and speed control technology.This upgrade relates to 12-30 and 6-30 machines built between 1982 and 1994. Even though the DC motor can no longer be obtained, the Marden Edwards service team have designed an upgrade system to move the machine across to an AC motor drive with inverter speed control.

In service re-configuration

When a production line requires a major re-configuration, for example changing from a front feed individual box wrapper to a side feed collator / overwrapper, it is more economic for Marden Edwards to buy back the original individual box overwrapper and supply a brand new, standard, purpose built side feed collator / overwrapper.

The 'donor' machine can then be re-furbished as is and sold into another industry, for example for wrapping Tea or Confectionery products.After a machine has been through the re-manufacturing process it is brought back to an 'as new' at time of original sale condition and is sold for two thirds of the equivalent new machine price. The machine is guaranteed, but only for three months as opposed to the twelve month guarantee for new packaging equipment.

However, more often than not customers do not want to part with their old, surplus Marden Edwards overwrappers preferring to keep them in storage for when a pressing wrapping need may occur. The flexibility and versatility of the machine often mean that it can be entirely suitable for special runs of promotional products.

SUMMARY 

Marden Edwards is fully capable of offering an excellent re-manufacturing service. However, because all its machines in the field are supported for spares and service and because of the good value for money offered by its range of new machines the requirement for re-conditioned machines is not high.