Albéa and Erpro Design High-End Sis Perfume Packaging
INTRODUCTION
Albéa, a beauty packaging company, had a cosmetics customer who wanted to elevate beauty packaging for a limited edition solid perfume product. To achieve this, Albéa needed to have a manufacturing process that allowed for a rapid development cycle and a quick ramp to production, all while maintaining a high level of detail and quality to make the product feel special.
Albéa partnered with Erpro Group, a member of the Carbon Production Network (CPN) in Paris, France. Erpro, which has six years of experience with the Carbon platform and has proven expertise with high fashion and beauty packaging elements with other well-known French brands, recommended Albéa leverage the Carbon Digital Light Synthesis™ (Carbon DLS™) printing process. For this specific project, the Carbon platform offered the quality Albéa required when it came to the level of detail, surface finish, and strength while providing the ability to produce low volumes quickly.
MATERIALS AND PART REQUIREMENTS
To create a luxurious-looking decorative badge on top of the perfume packaging for its customers, Albéa needed a precise machine and strong materials. With the Carbon platform, Albéa could reliably produce accurate parts with incredible surface finish.
Carbon’s EPX 82 was chosen to produce the decorative badge because it demonstrates excellent long-term chemical resistance and is functionally tough, ensuring the piece wouldn’t shatter or scratch if a user fumbled or dropped the product. It also meets many chemical compatibility requirements, which is necessary because the perfume might be tossed around in a makeup bag with different types of products and liquids.
SOLUTION
By using the Carbon platform with Erpro, Albéa enabled flexible customization, without expensive molds, for its beauty customers that require lower volumes.
The design for the shell badge started with a black and white 2D logo, but then Erpro and Albéa brought the logo to life, optimizing for printability and production with each design iteration, considering factors like how to print a part without supports, to make final assembly as easy as possible.
Erpro produced five iterations in two weeks. They were able to design, develop, and quickly scale to production because the end-use material was used for earlier prototypes.
“Thanks to 3D printing, we were able to offer several designs with different textures, in a very short space of time. This solution enabled us to offer a package based on our standards and to customize it to make it unique for our customer while controlling lead time.”
Yann Crapet Project Manager at Albea
RESULTS
Prototyping and producing on the same platform enabled Albéa to move to production much faster, saving valuable time in a fast-paced industry.
Without Erpro and the Carbon platform, the decorative badge would have been very costly and slow to bring to market with more traditional manufacturing methods. Instead, prototyping and producing on the same platform enabled Albéa to move to production much faster, saving valuable time in a fast-paced industry.
In the end, 12,000 badges were printed in a short time for Albéa because of the productivity, repeatability, and reliability of the Carbon printer, and the design and production expertise of Erpro.
3D as It’s Meant to Be
Interested in leveraging the Carbon DLS process for your bridge production needs? Get in touch with a Carbon expert.