Those who knew the old Masnières glass factory and have not visited it recently will probably not recognize it! It only took a few months for Austrian group Stölzle Glass (STO), one of the main European glass packaging manufacturers for perfumery-cosmetics, luxury spirits, and pharmaceutical products, to transform the site. The objective was to make it a centre of excellence and the group’s main point of entry for perfumery and cosmetics.
Old disused buildings were destroyed, the others were rebuilt or renovated, and a showroom is under development, with meeting rooms and conviviality spaces for customers to receive the best welcome. “We are enhancing our glassmaking business so we can provide the excellence brands demand and best celebrate its 200 years in 2018 – and prepare it for the next 200 years,” jokes Étienne Gruyez, General Manager of the Perfumes & Cosmetics Business Unit.
14 million euros invested in three years
There is no doubt that, once the transitional difficulties following the site purchase from the Bormioli Rocco Group in December 2013 were overcome, STO worked exceptionally hard to make the Masnières glass factory the new standard bearer of their high-end perfumery & cosmetics business.
Once the liquidation proceedings had ended in May 2015, the group invested 5 million euros to purchase new machines and renovate the site. Over the year 2016, 5 other million euros will be dedicated to automating quality control and decoration capacities, in particular by increasing the lacquering machine, hot stamping machine, and inkjet printers stock. Lastly, 3 to 4 million euros are also planned to be invested in 2017. All in all, it makes at least 14 million euros of investment in three years, plus 1 more million euros for a staff training programme (13% of the wage bill), to have a multi-skilled workforce on all production levels.
“We got outstanding support from our customers throughout the transitional period. Today, they can see the outcome of the investments made and the site transformation,” explains Étienne Gruyez.
A glass prototype in 15 days
With their 335 employees, an 80-ton furnace, and four production lines, including a mixed line for cosmetics, STO Masnières has been the point of entry and centre of excellence of the Stölzle Glass group’s Perfumes & Cosmetics BU since February 1, 2016, alongside the Stölzle Częstochowa site in Poland (more than 500 employees and four production lines) and Stölzle Flaconnage site in England (two lines), which is mainly intended for the British market.
In addition to building renovation and modernization, STO dedicated their first investments to upgrading the Masnières sites and ensuring perfect fluidity and uniform quality between their various production units throughout Europe. For example, quality control was largely automated by purchasing new aesthetic and dimensional monitoring machines with cameras. Once they have reached the end of the line, all cold batches are inspected, sorted out, and marked to be tracked down with a bar code. “The Stölzle Glass group actually forms a single entity to provide our customers with ten production lines and a significant growth capacity,” emphasizes Étienne Gruyez.
STO Masnières now has their own foundry for making single moulds for test products and repairing and maintaining production moulds. Here, the idea is to be the fastest at placing products on the market. “Reactivity is a guiding principle. That is what helped us win our latest markets,” adds the General Manager.
Now that they have a site located just a two hours’ drive from Paris, Stölzle Glass aims to capitalize on this closeness to offer a service combining irreproachable quality, speed, agility, and flexibility. “Once the project has been finalized, we can deliver the first glass prototype within 15 days, by producing all our test sections internally, from the first 3D-printed prototypes to the first glass test.”
And it is also to gain some speed that the decoration capacities have been enhanced. Today, 80% of the decoration is carried out internally.
Heading toward innovation
Lastly, the group has been focusing on innovation, with an objective of 10 new launches by the end of the year. This very ambitious task was entrusted to Franck Legrand, the new Development & Innovation Director. “We have more than 14 solutions under study right now, some of which are almost finalized, while others are still in the initial study phase,” he adds. “Brands expect their suppliers to come up with proposals.”
A new range of perfumery standard bottles is already available, and a range designed for cosmetics is under preparation and will be showcased at the Luxe Pack Monaco show.
In order to meet the high demand in this field, decoration has become one of the main innovation areas, with several finishing effects: the brushed carbon effect (Carbon Spray) developed in collaboration with plasturgists to produce a similar effect to that obtained with plastic on the glass, the crackle effect (Crackle Spray), a hot treatment that gives glass an iridescent metal mirror aspect, and for which STO holds a patent, a concrete lacquering effect, a colour effect (Prismatic Spray), a degraded partial lacquering effect (Indexed Spraying), and a glitter effect (Glitter Spray). In this field, STO’s perfumes & cosmetics activity benefits from the group’s expertise in the field of spirits.
“If material effects still account for most decoration requests, our customers expect a lot more now,” adds Franck Legrand. “Interactive decorations and accessory integration are two of the techniques currently under study”.
The other innovation areas have to do with the very structure of the glass: the company is working on making it lighter, as demand is quite high, both for ecological and economic reasons, and unbreakable. “We are far from having explored all opportunities. There are still endless possibilities to mix techniques and explore new shapes or more economic processes,” he concludes.
By investing simultaneously on all key aspects of competitiveness (reactivity, closeness, agility, and innovation), STO makes their ambitions pretty clear and does intend to gain market shares and be in a favourable position when brands get out of the “flanker cycle” and decide to reinvest in new launches. Beyond perfumery, the group is considering developing its presence on the cosmetics segment, where the share of glass – which plays a determining role in increasing the value perceived by customers – keeps rising. Now that the site’s industrial transformation is almost over, STO Masnières aims for a 25% growth by 2020. Indeed, a second furnace is all ready to be assembled, as soon as demand justifies its use!
