The Cosmetics Industry's Digital Transformation Story | Flormar Did It
About the Company
Flormar, founded in Milan in the 1950s and inspired by Turkey’s multicultural fabric, is a cosmetics company. Today, with over 500 stores in more than 70 countries, it is a global makeup brand that adds color to women’s lives. While offering high performance and a wide color range in its products, it uses clean ingredients and recycled materials in line with its sustainability vision. Flormar, a company operating in the fast-moving consumer goods sector under the motto “Happiness is your color,” has been a ProManage user since 2016. Flormar launched its Digital Transformation journey in 2016 and implemented ProManage MES.
Nebiye Güngördü Yusufoğlu
Reasons for the Need
At companies operating in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, such as Flormar, products must be processed quickly to meet customer needs from the moment they enter the factory, and every stage of the process must be meticulously tracked. Before ProManage, a large workforce was required for product tracking, and under the quality management system, multiple separate forms were used for the manufacturing, filling, and shipping areas. The data from these forms was analyzed and processed by engineering staff.
The primary reasons for the need for digitization are as follows:
- Limited resources: The necessity to transition to more efficient methods due to resources such as paper usage and human labor.
- Non-value-added workload: Engineers and operational teams were occupied with repetitive, non-value-added tasks—such as maintaining and analyzing paper-based data—instead of performing “truly value-added” work.
- Environmental and people-centered approaches: The desire to become a paperless business and reduce tree usage in line with a sustainability vision. Ensuring that employees’ time is allocated to more productive tasks aligned with their careers and training.
- The pursuit of efficiency and speed: The need to increase internal efficiency and speed to respond more quickly to customer orders.
Motivation for Choosing and Important Details
The key motivations and important details behind Flormar’s decision to choose ProManage for its digital transformation journey are as follows:
- Integration with the existing machine fleet: Flormar was looking for a system that could work with its existing machine fleet, did not require new machine investments, and was easy for users to operate. ProManage met this requirement and could be easily adapted to the existing machines.
- Easy adaptation: Even a new machine in the warehouse that had not previously been adapted to ProManage could be integrated into the system with minimal technical support, and performance metrics were monitored to quickly identify areas for improvement.
- Cultural fit: The system’s ability to ensure easy integration for everyone, from top management to the shop floor, was also a key factor in the decision. The ease with which even a new employee can analyze ProManage data instead of relying on old documents was emphasized.
- Rapid implementation process: Especially for fast-moving consumer goods companies, the system was designed to integrate with machines in a very short time. This was considered critical to avoid negatively impacting performance metrics such as OTIF (On Time In Full).
- Proper planning: A thorough planning process was undertaken to ensure the correct product selection and compatibility with the existing machine fleet, thereby preventing higher retrofit costs.
Personal Experiences
The key motivations and important details behind Flormar’s decision to choose ProManage for its digital transformation journey are as follows:
- Integration with the existing machine fleet: Flormar was looking for a system that could work with its existing machine fleet, did not require new machine investments, and was easy for users to operate. ProManage met this requirement and could be easily adapted to the existing machines.
- Easy adaptation: Even a new machine in the warehouse that had not previously been adapted to ProManage could be integrated into the system with minimal technical support, and performance metrics were monitored to quickly identify areas for improvement.
- Cultural fit: The system’s ability to ensure easy integration for everyone, from top management to the shop floor, was also a key factor in the decision. The ease with which even a new employee can analyze ProManage data instead of relying on old documents was emphasized.
- Rapid implementation process: Especially for fast-moving consumer goods companies, the system was designed to integrate with machines in a very short time. This was considered critical to avoid negatively impacting performance metrics such as OTIF (On Time In Full).
- Proper planning: A thorough planning process was undertaken to ensure the correct product selection and compatibility with the existing machine fleet, thereby preventing higher retrofit costs.
- Training and adaptation process: These issues were not viewed as insurmountable problems. With the support of the ProManage team, training sessions were held repeatedly, and refresher training was provided specifically to the team that had completed the initial training and to the engineering team. This helped shorten the adaptation process.
- Cultural transformation management: It was emphasized that cultural transformation must be managed very effectively during the digital transformation process. The fact that over 85% of Flormar’s workforce consists of women facilitated the integration of this cultural change.
- Employees’ Changing Roles: Blue-collar workers from the operations team began discussing the causes of downtime with engineers, armed with ProManage data. Engineers, in turn, used this data to focus on analysis and improvement tasks that provided greater added value.
- The new generation and flexibility: It was projected that engineer turnover would be higher if manual processes from before 2016 had continued. Thanks to digital systems like ProManage, remote work options have been made available, which has improved employees’ work-life balance, particularly in the post-COVID era. A work environment compatible with the digital lifestyles of the new generation is being provided.
What Has ProManage Brought?
ProManage has provided Flormar with multifaceted benefits:
- Visibility into actual data and efficiency: The system revealed the company’s true efficiency and focused the team on identifying losses and eliminating non-value-added tasks.
- Increased efficiency and capacity: The system taught the team to “compete with themselves,” resulting in increased efficiency and additional capacity. This made it possible to respond more quickly to new customer orders.
- Cost Reduction and ROI: Costs were reduced by decreasing paper usage and redirecting the team handling paper-based tasks to more productive work.
- Improved product tracking and customer satisfaction: A digital record of each product’s history was maintained, allowing for more accurate and rapid tracing of root causes in customer complaints, which in turn increased customer satisfaction.
- Employee satisfaction and work quality: Engineers have begun to focus on actual engineering work, analyzing data from ProManage to conduct root cause analyses and improvement initiatives (Kaizen). The operations staff has also returned to tasks that add value to the product. Blue-collar workers have become individuals who can discuss downtime causes with engineers using the data at their disposal, participate more actively in work processes, and develop their competencies.
- Operational Excellence and Continuous Improvement: ProManage played a data-providing role in daily operational meetings, enabling the analysis of the causes of breakdowns and inefficiencies, the conduct of root cause analyses, and the implementation of Kaizen initiatives.
- Integration of Digitalization and Lean: ProManage reinforced the idea that lean processes must advance alongside digital tools; it was emphasized that lean is very difficult without a digital tool. The two mutually reinforce each other.
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