Hamburg Bergedorf

Frequently Asked Questions

Where are we?
Can you smell the aroma of tobacco? Ah you can't. We are currently on the shop floor. Wondering why a mechanical engineering company smells like tobacco? Let me explain what we do here. As partner to the tobacco industry, the Körber Business Area Technologies offers a wide range of competencies to its customers. Our products and solutions enjoy a lot of success in the market. 2/3 of all filter cigarettes worldwide are produced on machines from Körber. All the machines for our customers are built at one of the Körber Business Area Technologies’ international production sites. We set up the machine and run it with production material – and because that happens to be tobacco, that's the source of the tobacco smell. Once the machine is running smoothly and passed our final acceptance test we dismantle it and send it to the customer.
Where is the Körber Business Area Technologies located worldwide?
Cigarettes are a well-known product all over the world and the Körber Business Area Technologies, therefore serves customers worldwide. In addition to our headquarters in Hamburg Bergedorf, the Körber Business Area Technologies operates from 20 locations around the globe, ensuring a local presence close to our customers. We have production sites in Italy, Malaysia, Hungary and the United States. You can visit some of our sites right here… By the way, our production site in Hamburg is so big that it even has its own fire department.
What can you tell me about the Körber Business Area Technologies?
Can you guess how fast our cigarette makers are? Körber Business Area Technoligies' fastest maker holds the world record for producing up to 20,000 cigarettes per minute. Each cigarette produced is checked by quality systems online. At that speed, it produces more than 8 million cigarettes in an eight-hour shift. We also invented the most efficient cigarette maker in the world – achieving efficiency rates exceeding 95%. This maker is called the PROTOS-M5e. Each PROTOS, even the latest generations, carries a little bit of company history within it. There is a part of the machine, the filter assembler, which is called the MAX. It was named after Max Pollmann who was the head of the testing department when the first filter assembler was invented back in 1954. To ensure that the products our customers produce on our machines meet the highest quality standards, each cigarette is tested with a variety of parameters. For this purpose, the Körber Business Area Technologies offers up to 20 different quality inspection systems for our makers.
What are your latest innovations?
We are innovative in the tobacco industry and are always looking for new opportunities in world beyond our known markets. Did you know that the Körber Business Area Technologies also offers the fastest paper straw maker? Our Straw Maker produces paper straws at a speed up to* 300 m/min. Are you interested in learning more about our latest innovations like the Körber Cell Maker, the future of battery production? Check out these exciting solutions on the innovation board.

Additional information

Protos-M Generation

The M Generation represents state of the art in the Körber Business Area Technologies: the world's best-known high-speed maker, producing up to 20,000 cigarettes per minute, which means that the M-Generation produces up to 333 cigarettes with proven reliability and performance in just one second.

The manufacturing process consists of three steps:

  1. The right-hand machine section prepares the tobacco for production and distributes it evenly.
  2. The cigarette paper is wrapped around the tobacco to form an endless tobacco rod, which runs into the MAX filter assembler.
  3. The MAX loads the tobacco rod with the filter pieces and thus produces the product – the cigarette. The cigarettes are checked in a final step to ensure excellent cigarette quality: there are up to 20 different control sensors during production, without reducing the production speed. If a product does not pass the test, it is immediately sorted out and not processed further.