Abstract: To address the limitation of YF17A cigarette reservoir system that links one cigarette maker to one cigarette packer, a one-to-two flexible linking system was designed. The system mainly consists of a tray filler, a transition guide plate and an interface device and is installed at the inlet position of the YF17A in a closed-loop cigarette making and packing line. Cigarettes are transferred to the packer for special size packets by way of the tray filler, or directly to the original packer by disassembling or assembling the transition guide plate. The interface device drives the output belt of the tray filler and transports the cigarettes to the sampling section of the YF17A. A speed matching model was established to adjust the speed of the YF17A to prevent cigarette damage. A closed-loop production line (consisting of a ZJ118 filter cigarette maker, a YF17A and a GDX2 cigarette packer) and a ZB417C hard packer were tested. The results showed that with the flexible linking system, the ZJ118 maker could feed cigarettes to the GDX2 and ZB417C packers separately and eliminate the need of emptying the YF17A. The average daily output of the ZB417C packer increased by 232% and the amount of unqualified cigarettes decreased by 95.0%. This technology provides support for improving the appearance quality and production efficiency of cigarettes.