Technical Principles of HST Machines
The design of the HST tea bag machines has been maintained and further developed from the beginning until today by the current senior manager, Dr. Gerhard Klar, within the mechanical engineering division of the company. The machines are used in the company's own two production plants as well as sold to packers all over the world.
The basic idea of HST machines is the principle of radical simplicity with the aim of achieving maximum functionality with the least possible effort. When the design of the first tea packaging machines was started more than 70 years ago, the design challenge was to nevertheless build a safe machine with the really small financial and technical resources available at that time: Here, for example, it was necessary to avoid all unnecessary parts and movements, to combine all functions of the machine clearly on one working level and to make them visible, and thus easily accessible for the exchange of spare parts, or to make the gearbox maintenance-free and durable. Therefore, the machines are quiet, economical in energy consumption (the motor consumes less energy than a hair dryer in the home, less than 1 kW !).
We at HST have always remained true to this relatively simple basic idea over the past seven decades. Even technicians are always surprised when looking at PT machines how little "machinery" is needed to produce tea bags..
Economic efficiency
Our answer to the question about the economic efficiency of a tea bag machine is therefore: The economic efficiency of a tea bag machine is an optimization over a sum of criteria, such as
- Purchase price
- Operating costs (maintenance requirements, spare parts consumption and energy consumption)
- Operating requirements and qualification requirements
- Output (production speed, running stability and reject rate),
- Downtimes (cleaning times, downtimes, repair durations, changeover times)
- Flexibility of installation, space requirements and noise emissions
- Product spectrum, filling tolerances
- Requirements for the operating environment
The HST machine series PT-20, -25, -33 meets this requirement profile in an ideal way and with the result of robust machines that have proven themselves excellently all over the world, even in developing countries. It is therefore not without reason that Sri Lanka, as an emerging tea country, has a large number of PT machines installed to the satisfaction of our customers.
Speed
HST machines are designed for the economic optimum, not for maximum speed, and therefore run at capacities of 140 to 175 tea bags per minute, depending on the type. As is well known, there are machines on the market that are twice as fast, but also at least twice as expensive. And this with the disadvantage that in case of a breakdown of one of these fast machines, the whole production capacity of a tea packing plant is always affected and shut down. The HST product concept is economically based on this fact and therefore offers two machines of equal speed for the price of a faster machine of the competition. In the event of a machine breakdown, half the capacity continues to run with HST machines, and breakdowns become less dramatic. Fortunately, this product concept is being accepted by more and more customers and is confirmed every day by the competitiveness of our own packing plants. ... It must be a machine that runs and runs and runs ...
Customers
HST machines are therefore ideal for the following customers:
- Small packing companies and founders who are new to tea filling. They can keep the required investment comparatively low and tackle the new work area with a machine that is easy to understand.
- Medium-sized packers who have already grown, who benefit from the flexibility of the machine. They can also handle small orders and switch more easily between different types of tea.
- Large packers who are interested in reliable machines, who know that the economic balance includes many factors and who strive for the long-term optimum as an essential factor of economic production.
Conclusion: As a tea packing company, you too can only win with HST machines !
