The BABOR BEAUTY CLUSTER includes a filling facility with a capacity for up to 50 filling and picking lines. Here, all the jars, tubes, sachets, and ampoules are filled – more than half a million units per day. Thus, the company is doubling its capacity of produced units. The global distribution center relies on reliable, high-performance logistics. In the logistics hall pallets and boxes can be safely stored up to seven meters high (23 ft). In addition, a state-of-the-art shuttle warehouse with 60 shuttle vehicles transports products to the picking and packing stations. Employees enjoy attractive, ergonomic workplaces. Autonomous vehicles are handling deliveries and removal of heavy work materials. The visual highlight of the new construction is the main building, which includes a spacious reception, administration area and the employee restaurant.More than 300 employees work at the new plant in Eschweiler-Inden, about 20 kilometers from the headquarters in Aachen. This location is special: The BABOR BEAUTY CLUSTER is located at a former coal mine as Eschweiler is situated in the middle a former mining area. Horst Robertz, Co-CEO responsible for procurement, production and research: “The BABOR BEAUTY CLUSTER is a milestone for our company and for this region going through structural change. Here, we have built one of the most modern and sustainable skincare factories in the world.” Robertz also looks to the future with confidence: “We want to offer good and safe jobs to our employees, and we also want to create new jobs, here.” Smart energy
All building structures meet the KfW 40 energy efficiency standard. This means the BABOR BEAUTY CLUSTER will be a high efficiency building that consumes 60 percent less energy than a standard building. The core of the energy supply is a photovoltaic system on the roof, that produces a major part of the electricity needed. The goal is for the building to be completely energy self-sufficient by 2030. Paired with heat pumps and heat recovery, the BABOR BEAUTY CLUSTER can function almost without fossil fuels. The only exception are the ampoule machines that still need natural gas to open and seal the glass phials. For those specialized machines there are plans to switch to hydrogen in 2024. Thus, the factory is dedicated to the “all electric principle”. A so called “cube” equipped with car batteries stores electricity from the solar panels so that it can be used later. It has storage capacity equivalent to the electricity needed by 120 households. Since initially production of the products remains at the Aachen headquarters, zero-emission electric trucks are used as a shuttle service between Aachen and Eschweiler. BABOR BEAUTY GROUP also has plans to install CO2 capturing technology at the new production site.