UKPACK packaging as a cosmetics related enterprise, we not only focuses on packaging, but also on the development process of cosmetics!
This is an article about the overall development planning and process of cosmetics. Friends in need can pay attention to it for reference!
1、 New product development definition
New product development is a process that starts with creativity, projects are approved after investigation and feasibility analysis, and then transformed into finished products on the market through project planning and implementation.
According to different starting points, new products are divided into new products, new product lines, supplementary products of existing product lines, improvement of existing products, market repositioning products and cost reduction products.
For enterprises, in order to consolidate the existing position in the industry, explore more markets and comprehensively promote the development of brands, it is necessary to select appropriate product types for development according to market changes and the company’s strategic planning.
2、 New product development process
Due to the different characteristics of different types of new products, the development process is also slightly different. However, combined with the characteristics of new cosmetics product development, the development process can be divided into seven stages.
01 product creativity
Product creativity is the premise and foundation of new product development. Product creativity is often expressed as a simple qualitative function description, such as existing business opportunities such as unrealized customer needs, emerging markets and untapped technology potential.
Consumer demand is an important source of product creativity. The new product development process based on consumer demand and market research can effectively reduce risks and resources, which is a necessary condition for enterprises to successfully complete new product development. If the demand of customers is not clear, enterprises should “create” new market demand to make their innovative products accepted by the market.
The opinions of the personnel of the R & D department based on the forward-looking research of technology are also an important source of creativity. Compared with other employees, the personnel of the R & D department have a clearer understanding of the future development direction of the enterprise’s product technology, the advantages and disadvantages of the enterprise’s products, and the current technical problems to be solved. Therefore, it is very possible to generate high-quality ideas from the R & D department.
02 feasibility analysis
After the collection of internal and external ideas, enterprises often form a variety of creative prototypes, and the role of feasibility analysis is to screen the product creative prototypes, so as to eliminate those obviously unreasonable ideas, reduce the workload in the later development process and minimize various uncertainties in the later development process.
The feasibility analysis shall include the following aspects:
(1) Formula feasibility analysis
Under the existing formula level, whether the dosage form and efficacy of the product to be developed can be realized, and ensure the safety, stability, efficacy and usability of the final product.
(2) Production feasibility analysis.
Whether the enterprise has the relevant equipment and filling conditions for the production of the product. If not, whether it can be realized through improvement and outsourcing; Whether we can purchase equipment or cooperate with appropriate OEM manufacturers or even more professional enterprises.
(3) Cost feasibility analysis
Whether the production of products can be realized within the acceptable cost range of paste, packaging materials, production, transportation and time.
(4) Regulatory feasibility analysis
Whether the product to be developed belongs to the category of cosmetics, and whether the ingredients to be added can be used in cosmetics.
(5) Conceptual feasibility analysis
Within the cognitive scope of the existing consumer groups of the enterprise, whether the scientific and technological concept of the product can be accepted, and if the concept is too advanced, whether it can be transformed into a concept conducive to understanding by consumers.
03 project preparation
After the feasibility analysis and approval, the project can be established. First, set up a development team and clarify the list and division of labor of the development team, such as who is responsible for raw material development, formula development, physical and chemical testing, efficacy evaluation, etc. only by clarifying the participating members of the development team, can they perform their respective duties in the development process and promote the smooth progress of product development.
After determining the composition list and division of labor, a product development plan meeting can be held to record the arrangements made by the responsible personnel of various work, development needs, development progress and other issues in the development process, so as to facilitate later viewing and comparison.
The product development plan meeting shall distinguish the importance of products and divide products into three categories: A, B and C. Of which:
Class a products: Star series or explosive products that the company pays more attention to and invests in. The development plan of class a products shall be approved by all functional departments related to product development;
Class B products: ordinary new products. The development plan of class B products only needs to be approved by the main functional departments, such as R & D department, marketing department, procurement department, training department, etc;
Class C products: mainly the adjustment of old products, such as formula fine-tuning, flavor replacement, packaging renewal, etc. Class C products are easy to operate and can be approved by the leader of the product development team.
04 project execution
After clarifying the participants, development needs, development progress and other contents, the new product development officially enters the implementation stage.
(1) New product development
New product development not only includes the development of formula, concept, packaging and technology, but also needs to be verified by consumers. This paper explains the formulation development process in detail.
(2) Formulation development
The first step of formulation development is to select the formulation framework and the skin feeling determines the raw materials, which determine the overall structure of the product. The formulation, appearance and characteristics of the product should be comprehensively considered.
Taking essence as an example, priority should be given to the type of thickener. If carbo is used as thickening agent, Carbomer with relatively low viscosity and high viscosity should be selected. When the product’s efficacy is very high and many active substances need to be added, it is also necessary to consider whether the selected carbo species have better ionic resistance. The raw materials that determine the skin feeling mainly include oil, wax and skin feeling improver, which should be properly selected and matched according to the skin feeling requirements of the product.
After determining the product framework and skin feeling determine the raw materials, it is necessary to select the concept and efficacy raw materials. The purpose of adding concept raw materials is to facilitate the market declaration of later products. The addition amount is small, which does not constitute efficacy or skin feeling. It only needs to ensure the safety and stability in the formula. The raw materials that really play a role often have a certain amount of addition. When selecting, we should not only consider its action mechanism, but also pay attention to its compatibility with the system.
For example, if you want to develop products with whitening effect, if you choose salt whitening agents such as ascorbic acid glucoside and ascorbic acid phosphatase, you must match with salt resistant frame raw materials; If licorice flavone is selected, the requirement for ion resistance of frame raw materials is not high.
In the process of formulation development, the use of new raw materials is inevitable. Before determining the use of new raw materials, it is necessary to fully understand all kinds of information of the raw materials, such as COA (product analysis certificate), MSDS (chemical safety data sheet), TDS (chemical technical manual), various parameters in efficacy report, toxicology report and safety data report, as well as packaging specifications, transportation and storage conditions, shelf life, supply period, etc. In addition, the use history of the raw material is also a very important reference basis. For enterprises, it is very risky to rashly adopt new raw materials that they do not understand. However, due to the limitation of the development cycle, enterprises often do not have enough time to comprehensively evaluate the new raw materials. Therefore, analyzing the application of the raw materials in other products is helpful to evaluate the use risk of the raw materials.
The stability range of core raw materials should also be clarified in the development of formula. At this time, it can not completely rely on the relevant data provided by the supplier. It should be comprehensively judged in combination with the basic experiment and the specific formula framework. The common way is to add the efficacy raw materials to the existing similar framework formula, observe the stability performance of the raw materials in the first trial products, and clarify the pH stability range and incompatibility of the core efficacy raw materials.
In the final formula, it is necessary to conduct physical and chemical analysis and test on the content of effective components. Efficacy evaluation (human test and in vitro test) is also indispensable. The purpose of efficacy test is not only to clarify the minimum effective addition amount and the maximum safe addition amount of efficacy raw materials, but also to help formula engineers find the balance between product efficacy and stability.
After the above steps are completed, the Formula Engineer starts to fine tune the skin feeling according to the development needs. At this stage, he mainly communicates with the marketing department, and after several times of sample delivery, feedback and adjustment, until the marketing department accepts it. In particular, due to the deviation of raw material batch, worker operation deviation and emulsification temperature deviation in the actual production process, these inevitable errors determine that the products of each batch cannot be completely consistent. However, it should be ensured that ordinary consumers cannot perceive this difference. Therefore, at this stage of skin feeling fine-tuning, the R & D department also needs to conduct skin feeling difference limit investigation experiment on the cream confirmed by the marketing department to confirm the viscosity range in which consumers cannot perceive the skin feeling difference.
(3) Concept development
The product concept is a description of the appearance, function and characteristics of the product. It is often organically composed of four parts: Dermatology, product dosage form, efficacy skin feeling and ingredient story. It can be selected and focused according to the brand positioning and marketing strategy. If the product concept highlights the efficacy of ingredients, it is necessary to conduct in vitro test first to confirm that the raw materials do have the claimed efficacy, and then apply them to the formula for human test. The test report can provide scientific evidence for the later claim by the marketing department.
(4) Consumer verification
After the formula is basically determined, consumers should also try it out. Volunteers (30 ~ 40 people) who meet the skin characteristics of the target consumer group should try the product for a period of time, and conduct a satisfaction survey. When the satisfaction is higher than 75%, it is considered that the formula of the product can pass. If it is lower than 75%, the formula shall be adjusted again according to the trial feedback of consumers until the satisfaction reaches the passing standard. In addition to sensory evaluation, objective product efficacy evaluation should also be carried out with the help of instruments such as facial image / contour analyzer, skin moisture tester, skin elasticity / wrinkle analyzer, colorimeter, dermoscope, ultrasonic, even advanced glycation end product detector, laser confocal microscope, multiphoton microscope and so on to confirm whether the product has the efficacy matching the claim.
05 preparation for listing
After everything is determined and before mass production, trial production is indispensable. The purpose of trial production is to determine the production equipment, production process and filling process, which is also a process of troubleshooting. During trial production, problems that cannot be predicted during laboratory proofing often occur. Finding and solving problems in the process of trial production can reduce the probability of errors in mass production. Only after the trial production is passed can mass production be carried out. Generally speaking, the output of trial production is about 50 ~ 100kg. The paste obtained after the trial production is the paste standard, which can be used for stability, compatibility, safety, efficacy evaluation, filling line test, etc.
After it is basically determined that there will be no mistakes in the production, it is necessary to synthesize the test results of the paste obtained from the trial production and the test results of the paste obtained in the laboratory to formulate the new product specification as the basis for the quality evaluation of each large goods in the later stage. The test items included in the specification include product appearance, aroma, pH, density, viscosity, microbial indicators, stability indicators, etc., and the test methods and frequency of various indicators will be clearly pointed out.
After the standard product is confirmed by the marketing department that there is no obvious difference, the formula is officially determined. However, before the product formula is input into the production management system, the R & D department needs to do a very important thing, that is, product risk assessment. Mass production can be carried out only when the assessment conclusion is that the risk is controllable and acceptable.
06 listing and listing review
The final introduction of the product to the market does not mean the end of the product development process. There are still a series of follow-up summaries and follow-up work. Taking the R & D department as an example, we need to summarize various experiences in the development process, share and learn internally, avoid similar mistakes in the next project, and effectively shorten the later product development cycle. In addition, the R & D department also needs to pay close attention to and follow up the relevant feedback of consumers on the product paste itself, carry out improvement research on the product, improve the quality in the next upgrade of the formula and obtain the recognition of consumers.
