The beauty industry has always felt the need for transformative technologies, in tune with the changes that occur every now and then. For instance, personal care has of late witnessed a significant shift towards sustainable, vegan and natural products while doing away with harsh chemical-based ones. This shift is being supported not just by the research teams, who work on product formulations, but also by manufacturing technologies that take forward this philosophy. There is a rising need to tailor products to meet the specific needs and preferences of customers, offering unique formulations, packaging, and designs.
With a diverse product range, from lipsticks to moisturising lotions to rouge and foundation, beauty manufacturing units deal with liquids, powders, and gels. Thus, they have different requirements when it comes to packaging, as they need to be handled gently. Especially for third party manufacturers, creating packaging that can be customised for different consumers is the key. Machines like powder filling machines, blister packaging, cartoners, stick packs, sachet machines, palletizers are a must have to ensure the best quality automated packaging at the plant. This is so, because consumers expect high standards from beauty products, not just from the quality of the product but from packaging too.
The goal of automation is to bring about an increment in productivity, efficiency, accuracy in production process, minimising human error and ultimately reducing the dependency on manual labour. When machines perform tasks without human intervention, it leads to better production quality, and most importantly, consistent quality of each batch can be maintained. Assembly line is another aspect where automation helps in saving time and effort. Products like lipsticks, applicators, require assembly of multiple components. While they were earlier done manually, now automated robot arms are programmed to perform the various tasks of manufacturing, let’s say a lipstick, from start to finish. When automation plays a role in every step of cosmetic production from assembly to packaging, we can be assured of flawless products. Also, automated packaging ensures that production pace does not slow down.
An innovative technology in the packaging process is the 3D printing technology. This additive manufacturing method creates physical objects from digital files of the model. It works by adding layer upon layer of the material and ultimately creates an object as per requirement. Using a photosensitive liquid resin, a photosensitive UV-laser beam is used to expose each layer, hardening the resin and thus creating the object layer by layer. The quality of the final object depends on the printer, though great quality packaging can be created this way. With 3D printing, we can easily tailor products to meet the specific needs and preferences of our customers, offering unique formulations, packaging, and designs.
The material used to create packaging objects can also vary. From resin to plastic to powders to metal and even carbon fibre. Recycled fibre, plastic etc can also be used to create sustainable packaging. This option enables the cosmetic industry to move closer towards their goal of sustainability. Also, with 3D printing, we can create prototypes and moulds much faster than traditional methods, reducing the time it takes to bring new products to market. Thus 3D printing and automation offer opportunities to make our manufacturing processes more sustainable and faster.
There are many more advantages of 3D printing technology. It reduces labour costs and increases overall efficiency, leading to significant cost savings in the manufacturing process. A single manufacturer can create products for multiple vendors as it enables customisation and personalisation. With on demand production, one can produce as per requirement, which will ultimately reduce wastage of final products as well as materials. This On-demand production allows for production in low volumes but mass customisation, as it gives freedom to create innovative designs.
While automation with the help of robotics, AI and revolutionising the manufacturing process through 3D printing are some of the latest changes in the cosmetics industry, there is always scope for more, and industry leaders must be open to experimentation to reach the pinnacle of success.
