Choosing the right production setup for your oral nicotine pouch business - Scalable, modular and stable

This consideration-stage guide is designed to help technical buyers and commercial gatekeepers evaluate production setups based on volume, flexibility, hygiene/HSEQ needs, and future growth requirements.

A) Which production setup fits your oral pouch business?

There is no universally “best” setup—only the best fit for your demand pattern and portfolio strategy. In practice, most oral pouch producers land in one of three archetypes.

1) Modular / scale-ready setup (best when flexibility matters most)

Best for: uncertain demand, fast-growing challengers, frequent launches, many flavors/strengths, shorter production runs.
A modular setup is designed to scale in steps. You invest in a stable core process, then add capacity or automation modules as volumes grow. The big advantage is that you don’t overcommit early—and you can adapt when your product mix changes.

says Melvin Zetterberg, Senior Technical Advisor at Piab.

 

2) High-throughput, highly automated line (best when volume is stable and high)

Best for: predictable demand, fewer SKUs, longer runs, focus on lowest possible unit cost.
This setup can deliver excellent repeatability and cost efficiency—when you can keep the line running with minimal interruptions. The risk is that you may end up paying for speed you can’t fully utilize if you have frequent changeovers, variable demand, or short batch sizes.

3) Hybrid setup (best when you need both flexibility and efficiency)

Best for: medium-to-high volume with meaningful SKU complexity, or when you want a phased path to automation.
Hybrid setups typically automate the most stability-critical steps first, while keeping other parts modular until volumes justify full automation. This is often a pragmatic “future-proof” approach—if you design the interfaces and layout correctly from the start.

B) 7 key factors to consider when designing your oral pouch production process

1) Volume roadmap and utilization (not just peak capacity)

Design for the capacity you can reliably run. The effective output of any setup depends on cleaning, changeovers, inspections, and micro-stops. A line that looks great on paper can disappoint in real life if it’s constantly stopping for routine activities that weren’t engineered for speed and repeatability.

2) Portfolio complexity (SKUs, flavors, formats, batch sizes)

SKU complexity is one of the biggest drivers of operational complexity. More variants typically mean more changeovers, more verification, more risk of mix-ups, and more pressure on planning. Be explicit about what your portfolio will look like 12–24 months from now—then choose a setup that can handle that reality.

3) Cleaning and changeovers as a designed capability

Treat cleanability like a production technology—not a housekeeping task. Changeovers that require disassembly, transport to wash areas, drying, reassembly, and verification can become the single biggest limiter of available production time.

Melvin Zetterberg notes that cleaning is often underestimated until scale exposes the true cost: when SKU count and frequency of changeovers increase, cleaning time becomes a capacity constraint.

4) Hygiene / HSEQ zoning and contamination control

Oral pouch production demands disciplined hygiene design. A robust setup makes the “right way” easy: clear zoning, controlled handling, cleanable surfaces, minimized open exposure, and procedures that don’t rely on exceptional operator effort to stay compliant and consistent.

5) Material flow and touchpoints (how many handoffs can go wrong?)

Stability improves when flow is simple, traceable, and low-touch. Each additional handoff (bags, containers, carts, temporary staging) increases the risk of delays, mix-ups, and unplanned stops—especially under time pressure.

A useful evaluation question is: How many times does material get moved, transferred, or re-identified from incoming to final pack? Reducing those touchpoints typically improves both productivity and quality confidence.

6) Maintainability and recovery time (how fast can you get stable again?)

Downtime is not only about how often issues occur—it’s about how quickly you recover. Setup design influences troubleshooting speed through access, layout, serviceability, and the complexity of moving parts and interfaces.

explains David Gabrielsson, Technical Specialist at Piab.

 

7) Expansion readiness (how you scale without disruption)

A scalable setup is one you can expand without stopping production for a major rebuild. That often comes down to planning for space, utilities, control architecture, and “plug-in” points where new modules can be added later with minimal disruption.

If your growth plan is ambitious, your layout should reflect that from day one—even if you don’t buy all equipment in phase 1.

C) How to choose the right production setup in oral pouch manufacturing

Step 1: Define your manufacturing profile

Start with a clear profile of what your setup must handle. Document: expected monthly volume (now and in 12–24 months), number of active SKUs, batch size range, changeovers per week, cleaning/verification requirements, staffing model, and uptime targets.

This step prevents you from choosing equipment based on theoretical capacity instead of operational fit.

Step 2: Decide what you’re optimizing for (flexibility vs unit economics)

Be explicit about your primary objective.
If your commercial strategy depends on fast launches and broad portfolios, prioritize modularity and fast changeovers. If your strategy depends on stable, large volumes, prioritize automation and long-run efficiency. If you need both, commit to a phased hybrid roadmap rather than trying to solve everything in one build.

Step 3: Find the real constraint before you invest

Most “capacity problems” are actually constraint problems. The bottleneck might be cleaning, feeding stability, packaging, QA holds, or maintenance recovery—not the core forming step. Identify where minutes are truly lost before selecting the setup.

Step 4: Stress-test alternatives with realistic scenarios

Evaluate setups using real operating days, not best-case assumptions. David Gabrielsson recommends testing for the realities that drive instability: changeover routines, dust containment, sensitivity to material variation, troubleshooting access, and how quickly the process can return to stable operation after interruptions.

Step 5: Build a phased roadmap with trigger points

Create a scale plan with clear thresholds. Define what you build now, what you add at the next volume step, and what infrastructure must be prepared upfront (layout, utilities, interfaces). This protects stability today while keeping growth cost-effective.

Closing: stability first, then speed

The right production setup is the one that stays stable while your business changes. When stability is engineered into cleaning, material flow, hygiene zoning, and maintainability, scaling becomes a controlled process—not a recurring firefight.