Each year, nearly 280 million bottles and jars for luxury perfumes and cosmetics are produced in the Pochet Group’s factory in Guimerville, a few kilometres away from the company’s historic site in Courval. The factory, which today brings together the manufacturing and decoration activities dedicated to perfume bottles and cosmetic jars, is undergoing major changes. Built in 1971, the plant is being completely refurbished as part of an investment plan that aims to transform it into a modern tool at the forefront of existing technologies and of current environmental requirements.
The rebuilding of the glass-melting furnace #4 (15 million euros of investments), which was inaugurated at the beginning of 2015, was also the occasion of a real technological move forward, with a 45% reduction in energy consumption.
The decoration unit is also undergoing full transformation. Actually, the group is investing more than 17 million euros over three years in the three Pochet du Courval decoration sites (Guimerville, Beaugency, Gamaches) with the aim of transforming them into the most efficient units of the sector by 2018. The three-year investment programme includes the optimization of the three sites, the rationalization of production flows, the equipment modernization, including new high-speed machines, and the automation of control operations as well as of loading and unloading operations.
Furthermore, the whole modernization process has been designed with the aim to improve employers’ working conditions as well as the group’s environmental footprint: calculation of the carbon footprint related to each operation, reduction of water consumption by 45% between 2014 and 2016.
Know-how transmission
The unique glass expertise the Pochet site in Guimerville offers luxury perfumery and beauty brands is the result of four centuries dedicated to glass making and innovations, with a recognized outstanding mastery of the interior and exterior glass shaping and of glass glow and purity. The company’s excellence has its source in a perfect mastery of the execution and a systematic control of all the items: each bottle or pot being controlled individually by a machine, by a human or both.
All production and finishing processes thus involve important skills issues and their transmission is an important competitive challenge for the Group. Pochet has therefore set up a plan to ensure the transmission and sharing of know-how as well as skill-building and increased commitment of employees. Initiated in Guimerville, this initiative aims to formalize key know-hows of the glassmaking process and should lay the foundation for the Pochet Academy, the place where the Group’s multi-material know-how will be shared.
Innovation
The Pochet site in Guimerville also has a research and innovation office whose mission is to reinvent tomorrow’s products from an aesthetic and functional point of view. Pochet aims to become the creative and inspiring partner of its clients and works with trend agencies to conduct studies with the aim to better understand new consumer expectations and define new uses.
