Anthony's Blog

Beauty is international

Let's talk about CIT visibility towards international.

First of all you must realize that the CIT is a small structure according to the number of employees but it works with the leading companies of the cosmetic area. 90% of the CIT activity is turned towards the international market. 

The CIT design innovative products. That means that it has to promote its product in order to show how they are interesting and all the benefits companies will derive from the innovations. The Cit is already well established on the make up market (that mean case for powder, mascara and lipstick) and the personal care. Currently, the Cit improve its establishment on the perfume market.  

The tools the CIT has to promote its products: 

A portfolio is updated every two weeks and distribute after the technical meeting to the major business units actors all over the world.

A monthly electronic-communication (PowerPoint) is realised to inform about the latest novelty of the CIT.

An ideas committee takes place every two months within each Business Unit in the presence of Fabrice (the CIT director) and all the others innovative persons of the BU and the commercial directors.

A decision committee takes place every two months in each BU with the major project managers of the CIT and also the major decision-maker of the B.U. 

As part of the projects coordination, Fabrice has also to imply himself directly, going on sites with samples.

Shows are also great opportunities to be in contact with customers in order to inform the B.U about the market needs. The most important shows are LUXEPACK (Monaco), HBA (New York) and COSMOPROF (Bologna) 

Working on an international market also implies to take into account specifics demands according to the regions the CIT sells its products. The two sources of information, in order to design specifics products are:

• the marketing department which has to inform periodically the CIT about the market trends, providing some examples.
• technical local colleagues who meet the customers and send us the feedback of informal discussions around innovation.

I will give you few examples of constraints or differences from a market to another.

For the mascara, the brushes are adapted to the local morphology, for example in Asia lashes are thinner towards the bottom and in America they are thicker and denser.

For the lip gloss, the applicator is adapted to the local lip shape (thin in Asia, thick for afro population).  

In this dynamic of innovation and expansion on an international market, the CIT is currently improving the relation with the US market.

• The relations with the US only exist since two months.
• Start of "Asian" innovation
• Creation of a bridge between the luxury packaging activity and the tube one.

What an intrernational world!

Clients and suppliers

The CIT is a very special unit as its process is based only on innovation and development. So I decided to focus only on a few points which are for me necessary to know in order to well situate the CIT activity.

How many customers do you have? Which are the different types of customers?  

- When we work directly with the customer, we are in contact with all the customers of the society. But by a majority we work with leading companies such as LVMH, L'Oreal, Lauder, Yves Rocher, Avon, Bourjois-Chanel, Natura et this in an international way. In fact, for somme customers the foreign subsidiaries are "independent" of the French or European structure. In this case we work with the customer on a specific product, design exclusively for it.

    - When we work for an internal demand, our customers are BU's customers (Business units),             through plants. In this case we are typically in an innovative approach in order to create a new               standard to be sold on the market.

Which are your arguments to promote/sell a product?

- For a specific product, our arguments are:

o Availability

o Reactivity

o Ingenuity ( by an innovation or a new added value bring to the product thanks to a new idea or improvement)

- For the development of a standard product, our method is innovative in these fields:

o Improvement of the product utilization

o New concept from a transversal activity

o Economy

But in all the case, we must be careful to do not disorient the customer. The market has some rule or codes to respect, and with these constraints, we have to distinguish our self from our competitors.

How do customers demands are taken into account? 

The marketing man is our contact with the market.

The input (ie the idea), can come from:

- The creative marketing. In this case the idea come from a show or a meeting with a customer)

- The operational marketing. A new trend is defined after a show or by a market study.

- The CIT itself (from a personal experience of the employees)

- The customer

 All these ideas are presented and discussed every two month in order to make a selection during a "creation committee". Then the CIT works on the most promising projects. Finally a "decision committee" validates the project to make the moulds.

About the suppliers, only two types are interesting in an innovative project:

- The mould manufacturers, because of their expertise and their knowledge of the competitors.

- The plastic suppliers. There are about eight principals and ten distributors. We work with them in order to improve the materials' characteristics.

 Suppliers' localisation:

- For the mould manufacturer, two criterions are taking into account: the price and the rapidity of fabrication. That is why we work with French manufacturer but also with low cost countries in Asia or other regions.

- For raw materials, we are totally free in the choice of our suppliers. The CIT is the only one able to work outside the traditional purchase perimeter. Because we must be open to every innovation.

The history of mascara brush

On Monday afternoon, Fabrice introduced me to Patrice. Patrice has a big office-laboratory on the first floor of the CIT. Before I pass the door, I didn't imagined what I am going to tell you. 

Mascara brush is a very technical product as you will see.

But first, go back to 1670. Why? Because since 1670, Patrice family make brush! Every brush you want: toothbrush, hairbrush, horse brush, mascara brush…This is a real family affair, from father to son. 

In 1919, his great-grandfather was working for Rimmel.

In 1948, the mascara looked like a pate and the applicator was without brush. The result was not perfect; I let you imagine ladies…

But in 1962, the first applicator with a brush is brought back from the US by a Lancôme employee. This man gave it to Patrice father in order to find the process to make such brush. The first were handmade and in 1967, all the prisoners of France were employed to make mascara brushes. As the demand increased, the prisons were saturated. They had to find an industrial process and to design a machine.  

The first company which tried was Renault, the automotive company. But after many essays, Renault gave up in front of the difficulty.

The German thought that they were no outlet.

Finally, Patrice's father found a company which made the biggest brush in the world, 6 metres of diameter. They were use to clean the chimneys of big plants. The manager decided that if his company was able to make the biggest, it would be able to make the smallest. During 4 years, this man tried to design a machine able to produce the brush at an industrial rhythm. But finally he also gave up and it was Patrice father, after two more years who managed to make the machine. It produced 1600 brushes / hour.

And the history does not stop there. Nowadays, there are 2500 patent on the brush, and 1500 are owned by L'Oreal. Because if at the time the outlet was of 2 500 000 brushes / year, now it is 350 000 000 brushes which are produced per year.

Italia I'm coming

Hi everybody!

I am going to Italia today, to the "polytecnico di milano" in order to study marketing during a week. I will be on the campus of Como and I think that it will not be possible for me to blog during a whole week. So when I'll be back I will take a long time in order to read all your "About Me" page.

I am sure that I will enjoy the "Italian Way of life"

See you soon on the blog!

About me

I am a 22 years old French guy.  

I come from the west of France, more exactly from Plouay, a small town in the south of Brittany. Let me tell you that I really like my region. Just look at the photos and you will understand why!

Me: 

I like: nature, good food, especially my grandmother "crêpes" (it is a Breton specialty better than pancakes), mountain bike and motorbike, good parties with friends and all kind of music (pop, rock, house), frankness.

I dislike: cheese and winter.

My studies: 

I am a second year student at the "Ecole des Mines de Paris", a French non-specialized engineering school. The degree course allows us to tackle with a lot of subjects which allows us to be open to many areas.

I have got a specialty also: "Engineering design and project management". The second part of the title is clear, but let me explain you what are the distinctive features of the first part!
My specialty is based on the design of innovative products or services. For instances, with three others students, we are working on new urban means of transport. Do you know seagway, this is a new astonishing means of transports design by an American guy. 

How did I end up here? 

I know Alcan because last year Marie-Bernard Delom came to the school. She made a speech to the year, I think it was about industry in general and to introduce us our first year blue collar experience.
And  of course  I still follow the industrial  news.

So  when  I receive Alcan's proposal to live an Alcan engineer life for a whole day, I though it was a great opportunity which was offered to me. Moreover, living this experience with foreigner is very enriching!

Now I am just waiting for my Alcan Day and of course the other student's one!

Because I am anxious to know more about all alcan jobs, from finance to human resources to R&D!

So Have fun on our Alcan Blogs! I am sure we will all take advantages of this opportunity and provide our readers a original point of view on Alcan activities!

About my coach

 

A Few words a bout my coach

It's Fabrice Dieudonat.  

He is the technical director of the Innovation Center (CIT in French). The CIT belongs to the Packaging Business Group, more precisely to the TechPack group.

From the ISPA to the CIT: the world of plastic processing. 

Fabrice studied 2 years at the ISPA (Industrial Plastic Processing Engineer School). This formation aims at training engineer responsible of production facilities. That's why this teaching is very specialized.

Fabrice decided very soon to work in the cosmetic or pharmaceutical fields. Those fields were (and are still) for him synonymous with innovation and youthfulness because the products are perpetually renewed in order to follow the market.

He began by an internship in a company which produced luxury cork. The company's manager decided to be his tutor, which could be a real opportunity for him. But just before the end of his internship a fire destroyed the entire plant even though he was suppose to enter in the company as the assistant of the workshop manager. Finally he was employed as workshop manager and became plant manager for another plant of the group. He supervised the tool adjustment, logistic, planning, subcontracting ...

Finally he left this company for the mass market and the shampooing caps production for 5 years. As a technical director, he began a reorganisation of the industrial tool and became manager of the factory. After a strong reorganisation of the company management, he had been called by Pechiney.

Promote project manager at TechPack, he had to convince that he was capable to take the direction of the CIT, in replacement of Robert Petit, a well-known person in the group, 20 years older than him.  

Since 2004, he reorganised the CIT process, in order to increase the efficiency of this unit and to provide to TechPack a lot of innovations that you, especially ladies, will be able to try one day...

A few words from my coach

"Be open-minded, flexible and communicative with the team.

Be a specialist and build on it a management competency…"

No need to explain you what it means. Sure you understand that Fabrice's career reflect those two principles.

My Alcan Day

 

I spend my Alcan day at the CIT, in Chevilly-Larue, in the suburbs of Paris. The CIT is the Innovation Center of Techpack Group.  

But let me introduce you to Alcan Packaging activity.

Alcan provides package on 4 markets:

• Beauty & Personal Care,
• Pharmaceutical & Medical,
• Tobacco
• Food.

The Beauty activity regroups tubes, aerosol cans and luxury package (Techpack) design and production.
The innovation center belongs to TechPack group and work for 4 business units:

- Perfume an personal care

-   Make Up & promotional Europe

- Make Up & promotional America

- Make Up & promotional Asia

      

The Cit has different goals. 

Firstly, it is a response to the marketing activity, in order to design and develop products that will be able to answer to consumers demands.

Secondly, it provides to the business units a technical assistance thanks to the different skills develop in the CIT (test, design, technical expertise…)

Thirdly, project management for the business units.

Finally, there is an activity of technological wakefulness.

So the CIT is in contact with the Marketing, the clients, the plants of the Business units and marketing man

 

After the CIT's presentation, Fabrice explained me what are the principal projects he is working on.

The most important according to me is the reorganisation of the CIT functioning. It aims at increasing the potential of this structure in order to conclude more innovative projects than in the past. The key of the success for an innovative product is that people in the Business Unit (BU) or in the marketing appropriate the innovation in order to support the project till the end.

 
Managing a project 

In the afternoon, I met two project managers, Frederic and Marie-Christine. We discussed about the development of a new product.

These are the different stages:

1. Demand      from the customer (marketing, BU, outside customer)
2. Prototype      design
3. Realization      of the mould in order to make a set in the CIT workshop.
4. Evaluation      of the potential market (That is why the CIT workshop is necessary,      because this evaluation can not be made thanks to the virtual model).
5. Redrawing      of the model  

Of course the faster the decision is taken; the cheaper the project is, because moulds are very expensive, from 2500€ to 50000€ for a multi-mark mould made in France.

The project manager can follow 25 projects (innovative or development) at the same time.