End-of-line partnership with Gebo Cermex for Unilever’s new facility in Dubai
Two comprehensive end-of-lines for production of shampoo and conditioner in shaped bottles have been successfully implemented by Gebo Cermex at Unilever’s site in Dubai, which is the largest personal care factory in the Middle East and Africa.
With this large installation, the global player in the consumer goods market was looking to use state-of-the-art technology that, combined with a modular design, ensures faster, shorter, and highly responsive production lines that cut lead-time to market. With eight formats to handle at 350 products/min per line and multiple changeovers per day in maximum ten minutes, the entire set of Gebo Cermex competences was needed, from robotic product collation to shrink-wrapping and palletising.
Over the next five years, the Middle East-African market is expected to be the fastest growing region in the world for beauty and personal care products. Young populations and rising levels of spending in many of the countries in the region offer growth opportunities that global consumer goods companies are trying to address via investments of billions of dollars into the Middle East.
The British-Dutch consumer goods company, Unilever, has also taken action along these lines, choosing the slogan ‘Made in the UAE’, thus acknowledging that the United Arab Emirates is a strong trade corridor that connects the East and West with significant growth potential and a world-class infrastructure. Annually, the Unilever factory produces a notable 500 million items (or 100,000 tons of liquid product), dealing with hair and skincare products under the Dove, Fair & Lovely, Lifebuoy, Vaseline, Clear, TRESemme and Sunsilk brands.
Gebo Cermex has supplied 19 machines across the different production lines of the 100,000 square meter Unilever facility, including packers and shrink-wrappers for premium pots of skin cream or tubs of facial cream in cartons. To secure the end-of-line performance of their two packaging lines bottling shampoo and conditioner products, Unilever relied on the engineering and robotic expertise of Gebo Cermex, alongside with its capacity to combine and customise existing solutions to fully comply with any customer’s specifications.
