Method for operating a gluing system

A method for operating a gluing system (10) for gluing blanks for producing and/or packaging cigarettes or other smokable objects, comprising:

• conveying the blanks along glue valves (11) of the gluing system (10);
• in order to control and/or regulate the glue valves (11), using a superordinate master controller (13) to respectively transmit values of at least one control and/or regulation parameter to individual controllers (15) which are assigned to the glue valves (11), are subordinate to the master controller (13), and are each connected to the superordinate master controller (13) via a suitable data connection, wherein the subordinate controller (15) uses said values to control and/or regulate the glue valve (11) assigned to subordinate controller (15);
• recording the values of at least one characteristic variable of the glue valves (11) respectively integrated in the gluing system (10) for one of the glue valves (11), for a plurality of the glue valves (11), or for each of the glue valves (11), wherein the at least one characteristic variable is the electrical current flowing through the coil of an electromagnet of the glue valve (11) in the event of movements of a closure element of the respective glue valve (11) which have been caused by the electromagnet;
• and
• detecting and determining the corresponding glue valve and fault states of the glue valves (11) using the values of the at least one characteristic variable.