Abstract: In order to reduce the failure rate and maintenance time of cigarette separating drum in PROTOS M5 filter cigarette maker, the failure cause was analyzed and two optimization measures were proposed. It was found that the failures happened when the slide block was in a loosening state due to the wearing of the cylindrical cam in the cigarette separating drum and the increase of the clearance between the guide rod and linear bearing on the slide block. The first optimization measure is to increase the number of slide blocks and cigarette separating blocks both from 8 to 12 to decrease the total mass of a single slide block and a cigarette separation block by about 24% to reduce the load on cylindrical cam. The second optimization measure is to redesign the working curve of the cam using Fourier functions to minimize the extreme values of speed and acceleration of slide block so that the load on cylindrical cam can be reduced. The optimized cigarette separating drum in PROTOS M5 filter cigarette maker were tested on "Furongwang (hard)" brand cigarettes for one year and the results showed that the failure times of the cigarette separating drum decreased from 32 to 0 and the maintenance time was reduced by 48 hours. The optimization design provides support for improving cigarette production efficiency.