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Water pipes – also known as shishas – have been smoked in the Orient for many centuries. When a customer expressed the wish to revolutionise the traditional method of presenting the shisha tobacco, the question was: how do we get the tobacco into the pods?

SHISHAPRESSO – ORIENTAL LIFESTYLE ENCOUNTERS THE GERMAN ART OF ENGINEERING

A waldner dosomat delivers water pipe tobacco in coffee pod shape.

Karl Angele, Managing Director of Hermann WALDNER and Sales Manager, was surprised. An enquiry from Beirut landed on his desk. It related to water pipes and, more precisely, to the tobacco smoked in water pipes. Could WALDNER envisage portioning shisha tobacco and fi lling it into small containers, rather like the capsules or pods used for coee.

The team around Karl Angele found that this was not such a straightforward matter but set to work with German engineering artistry to design a suitable DOSOMAT. The team was able to draw on the experience gained on its successful major project for "TASSIMO" (Jacobs coee discs), for which WALDNER had already delivered twelve machines.

By developing the servo-controlled DOSOMAT 20.4, WALDNER succeeded in bridging the centuries-old tradition of shishasmoking and modern lifestyle demands on convenience products.

By Ralph Krauss (ralph.krauss@waldner.de)

For 60 years WALDNER has been building and delivering DOSOMATS for the fi lling and sealing of aluminium packs. Many loyal customers in the food and in the animal feed industry have placed their trust in these reliable DOSOMATS for many years.

Step by step to smoking enjoyment

We start by making the aluminium containers. The DOSOMAT takes them from the stack, inserts a hole in the base and then seals it from the outside with removable lids on the base. The pods are then ready to be fi lled with tobacco.

An aluminium wire is tied to a "loosening clip" and placed in the pods to break up the tobacco before it is smoked. When the pods are shaken before smoking, the wire clip breaks up the tobacco to release its full fl avour.

A particular challenge: fi lling the tobacco.On the one hand, it is too dry to process with a liquid metering unit. On the other hand, with a moisture content of 20-35%, it is too moist and sticky for a standard metering unit, which explains why it is fi lled by means of four combined screw and piston metering units.

A particular challenge: fi lling the tobacco.On the one hand, it is too dry to process with a liquid metering unit. On the other hand, with a moisture content of 20-35%, it is too moist and sticky for a standard metering unit, which explains why it is fi lled by means of four combined screw and piston metering units.

To smoke a shisha, the water vessel ("bowl") is partly fi lled with water and the smoke column is fi xed to it. The tobacco head is then fi lled with around 5 to 10 grammes of water pipe tobacco onto which the glowing charcoal is later placed. The glowing charcoal heats up the moisture contained in the water pipe tobacco with the aromatic substances and it evaporates. Sucking on the mouthpiece creates a vacuum in the bottle, which causes the mixture of air, steam, smoke particles and aromatic substances, produced by heating the tobacco, to be drawn through the head and smoke column. (Source: Wikipedia.de)

When curry follows you Into your sleep* …

... Then a waldner dosomat is definitely involved.

It is hard to envisage 'snack culture' in Germany without curried sausage. Until now, around 800 million curried sausages are eaten every year in Germany. For some time now, curried sausages have become more than just a "simple meal": they have become a cult German snack. Since May this year, fans of curried sausage have been well-served by Rügenwalder Mühle as well: now curried sausage is also part of the new range. Practically packed in a shallow tray, similar to the original snack bar trays, the products can be prepared instantly in the microwave or in a pan of water or bain marie.

But how does curried sausage get into the box? The answer: using a WALDNER DOSOMAT, with the help of Michael Egger's team.

"This order was a special challenge for us," recalls Michael Egger, Head of DOSOMAT Final Assembly. "The Rügenwalder Mühle curried sausage project consisted of several machines – an industrial grilling oven, a DOSOMAT inline machine, a sleever and a wrap-around packaging machine. The construction of these machines as well as their precise coordination with each other challenged me and my colleagues in final assembly," explained Michael Egger, a qualified Foreman, responsible for the final assembly of DOSOMAT packaging machines. Along with his team, he is responsible for ensuring that all components of the packaging machines – regardless of whether they are small rotary machines or inline machines running the entire length of the building – are ready on schedule and can then be assembled to produce a fully operational machine.

Interdisciplinary, inter-departmental teams develop the solution

When a project like the "Rügenwalder Mühle" one is passed onto Final Assembly, he fi rst puts together relevant teams. "The starting point of the project is specifi ed based on the workfl ow set out by Project Management. I then plan which member of my sta will take over this project as machine operator. I then allocate an appropriate team of people to this employee," explains Michael Egger, outlining his work.

The cumulative experience, knowledge and expertise of the interdisciplinary teams is called for with all DOSOMATS. Often the groups, made up of industrial mechanics, electricians, electronics and mechatronics engineers, have to fi nd new solution approaches for specifi c stations (stacking, fi lling, sealing etc.) together with Sales, engineers and project managers, which are then tested and presented to the customer.

"We were able to showcase our entire DOSOMAT product range within a single order, which means that we also had the interfaces under control," explains Michael Egger, by way of summary.