Consumer Packaged Goods & RetailFebruary 17, 2023

Simulation boosts worker health and safety on the production line

French cosmetics manufacturer Laboratoires M&L uses simulation and virtual twins to run efficient and sustainable production facilities that prioritize worker well-being.
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Avatar Rebecca Lambert

For a company that prides itself on carefully sourcing and creating some of the most sustainable and natural cosmetic products on the market, it’s fitting that Laboratoires M&L puts the well-being of its people first too. Inside the cutting-edge manufacturing facility for L’Occitane Group in Lagorce, France, workstations are configured to promote good posture and comfort for each individual operator, and digital technologies simulate shop floor conditions to prioritize worker safety.

At the center of Laboratoires M&L’s proactive health and safety policy is an initiative called MyHealth@Work. As part of the initiative, Dassault Systèmes was asked to develop a virtual twin of the Lagorce facility and its production lines. What began as a standalone proof of concept to help prevent the occurrence of musculoskeletal disorders among staff members quickly evolved into an exciting partnership between Laboratoires M&L and Dassault Systèmes to further improve worker health and safety.

Today, through a Virtual Twin as a Service, the manufacturer outsources all kinds of virtual twin and simulation projects to Dassault Systèmes to help enhance staff well-being, improve operational efficiencies, and realize the company’s vision of creating a new industrial model that connects people, performance and nature.

“It’s a partnership which allows us to generate knowledge, develop skills and benefit from emerging technologies in a pioneering way and identify areas of value,” said Maxime Plazolles, innovation engineering project manager at Laboratoires M&L, L’Occitane Group.

Most recently the company put MyHealth@Work into action to better understand the spread of viruses and test thermal conditions, particularly how much certain areas of the shop floor heated up during specific periods. Using a virtual twin of the shop floor, the Dassault Systèmes team carried out pathogen and thermal simulations of the environment to determine what measures it could put in place to protect workers.

“We have been able to make visible the invisible,” Plazolles said.

Read the full story to discover how Laboratoires M&L uses simulation to improve the well-being of its workers, covering everything from pathogen and thermal flows, and virtually test new production lines to optimize set ups.

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