Transparency in production

Transparency is an essential part of Bell’s corporate philosophy, with the main emphasis not so much on the transparent plastic materials which take up the lion’s share of the company’s production, but rather on transparent communication directed towards consumers. For the Polish cosmetics manufacturer’s commitment to sustainability is setting high standards. Only particularly energy-efficient machinery and equipment are admitted to the company’s injection molding floor, such as the injection molding machines, robots and dryers from WITTMANN.

Visitors are already impressed by the building on their way from the car park to the reception. A lot of wood built into the facade, green roofs, and large old trees surrounding the premises. Here, the strong emphasis on sustainability and responsibility catches the eye at once.

We have arrived at Bell PPHU Kosmetyki in Józefów, 20 kilometers south-east of the Polish capital Warsaw, and are now sitting in the office of Production Manager Waldemar Gula. Through the window on his right, he enjoys an unobstructed view on nature, through the opposite window he keeps an eye on the injection molding floor, which at present contains 48 injection molding machines – all of which have come from the WITTMANN Group and are equipped with linear robots from WITTMANN. An extension is planned for the next few months, since the demand for cosmetic products from Bell is increasing rapidly.

Output more than doubled with energy consumption unchanged

Everything started 35 years ago with the production of lipsticks. Now Bell covers the entire range of decorative cosmetics and delivers its products to more than 60 countries worldwide.

All primary packaging for make-up, eyeshadow, mascara etc. is produced in-house with a strong focus on sustainability. Servo-hydraulic SmartPower and all-electric EcoPower injection molding machines dominate the picture. The number one decision-making criterion for investments in new injection molding technology is energy efficiency. “With every new machine, the energy efficiency increases even further”, Gula reports. “At the beginning of our efficiency boosting program, we were producing nine million parts per month. Now this has gone up to twenty million, but still our energy consumption in the injection molding shop has remained the same.”

Gula attributes this success to the consistent use of injection molding technology from the WITTMANN Group. The machines from the EcoPower series come with highly dynamic servo motors to drive the main movements. Thanks to KERS, the deceleration energy of the drives is recovered and used within the machine, for example to supply the necessary voltage to the control system, or for barrel heating. “KERS stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System”, explains Bogdan Zabrzewski, Managing Director of the WITTMANN subsidiary in Poland. “With KERS, a further reduction of energy consumption by up to 5 per cent is possible.”

The servo-hydraulic SmartPower machines from the WITTMANN Group also operate with KERS. In this series, the combination of fast-responding servo motors with powerful constant displacement pumps is the standard. For the injection molding process, this means maximum speed and precision of the machine’s movements with simultaneous minimal energy consumption.

Specialized dryer solution for PETG

On the day of our visit, small, slender bottles produced inside a 16-cavity mold are running off the clock-out belt of an EcoPower 300 injection molding machine. Anyone unfamiliar with the material would take it for glass. In reality, it is PET. “PET looks like glass, but it does not break when it falls down”, explains Gula, which is why this material is playing a more and more significant part in cosmetics packaging. Twelve years ago, Bell was the pioneer in this field. “We were the first cosmetics producer to manufacture bottles for mascara and lip gloss from PET”, says Gula.

Today, primarily PETG is processed, a glycol-modified variant offering a particularly high degree of transparency and impact strength, and simultaneously excellent processing attributes. With their standardized universal screws, the SmartPower and EcoPower machines deliver first-class injection molding results. “Only the drying process presents a special challenge for this material”, Gula discloses. While normal PET is dried with temperatures around 160 °C, PETG requires significantly lower temperatures between 60° and 70 °C. “So, we have specially fitted the WITTMANN Drymax dryers for our customer Bell with a cooling device”, reports Bogdan Zabrzewski. In this customized solution, it was of special importance for Bell that the cooling can be switched on or off as required. For the dryers are being used flexibly for other materials, too.

“The Drymax from WITTMANN has absolutely convinced us”, says Gula. “We are reaching a dew point of -67 °C with it. This has not been achieved so far by any other dryer model.” Zabrzewski explains the high performance of the Drymax dryer with the use of two desiccant cartridges. “The dryers deliver process air continuously, and drying air of constant high quality.” Thanks to countercurrent regeneration, the dryer also stands out by its extremely energy-efficient operation.

Machines with short delivery times

Bell’s customer base is heterogeneous. In addition to long-standing customers, who place their orders well in advance and invariably for large quantities, there is a daily inflow of many short-term orders involving relatively small batch sizes. What is more, every national market sets different requirements, all of which has led to a very large number of active molds and frequent mold changes. “Elastic production” is the term used by Waldemar Gula to describe this great flexibility required from Bell every day.

Production planning is getting even more complex due to the innovation cycles becoming shorter and shorter. “Often a completely new packaging design emerges after just one year”, Gula reports. Here, the in-house mold making shop helps the company to keep up with the trend in a fast and flexible way. But the cosmetics manufacturer also expects this flexibility from its suppliers. “Short delivery times are vital for us”, emphasizes Gula, who has occasionally purchased a WITTMANN machine from existing stocks and once bought a SmartPower 300 directly from the booth at the Fakuma.

Mono-material packaging in vogue

“We are able to fulfill all packaging wishes. Any form and any color – from transparent and matt-finished right up to high-gloss”, says the Production Manager, and then adds that at present primarily high-gloss surfaces generated inside a mold are increasingly in demand. Here, sustainability is also an issue, since metalizing and chrome plating are more and more often dispensed with to protect the environment as well as the staff members. The current trend favors non-coated mono-material packaging, because it is easier to recycle.
“We bear a great ecological responsibility” emphasizes Waldemar Gula. “It is important for us to include the consumers’ interests in all our decision-making”. On its website, for example, Bell posts information about sustainable production and instructions for correct disposal of the packaging, so that the plastic materials will be returned to the cycle. Every piece of cosmetic packaging leaving the Bell plant in Józefów is provided with a QR code. This gives consumers very easy access to information about the packaging materials used and the correct way of disposal for recycling. “This is the only way for a circular economy to function”, states Waldemar Gula, “by integrating the consumers into our network as part of the value chain.”