Abstract: To replace the tedious manual work of emptying cigarette packets from the packing process of YB45 hard packer, an automatic emptying system was designed. The system mainly consists of a cigarette supply inhibition mechanism and an inner liner supply inhibition mechanism, both are controlled by an independent PLC controller. After the automatic emptying system is started, the pins in the cigarette supply inhibition mechanism are inserted into both ends of the cigarettes in the discharge channels to inhibit the cigarettes from falling into the front end of the cigarette pusher. The inner liner supply inhibition mechanism uses two air cylinders connected in series to replace the left and right electromagnets in the inner liner bobbin changing mechanism. When the two cylinders are not in synchronization, the inner liner supply is inhibited due to the conveying roller is decoupled from the main drive. The designed system was tested with "Nanjing (Xuanhemen)" brand slim cigarettes on a YB45 hard packer at Huaiyin Cigarette Factory. The results showed that the waste of label, cigarette and inner liner due to the packer shutdown decreased by 99.45%, 87.38% and 97.84%, respectively. This technology supports the promotion of production efficiency of cigarette packers and the reduction of raw and auxiliary material waste in cigarette packing.