How Unilever Expedites Product Innovation With AI, Automation, and Robots
Robots are having a heavy hand in product innovation at Unilever, thanks in large part to the efforts being implemented at the company’s Materials Innovation Factory (MIF) in Liverpool, according to a recent blog post.
These innovations are having a global impact, influencing product discovery, research, and manufacturing in not just the U.K., but across the sea in the U.S. as well. There’s three special “ladies” to thank, per Unilever, and they’re named Ariana, Shirley, and Gwen.
These three robots are working alongside 250 R&D experts at Unilever’s 120,000-square-foot facility to help develop science-backed products through the power of automation.
According to Unilever, MIF has the highest concentration of robots doing material chemistry in the world, and each machine is designed to crunch “colossal amounts of data and maintain consistency across samples and testing.”
The company makes it clear, however, that it isn’t looking to replace human efforts; it’s merely freeing up time by reducing time-consuming, repetitive jobs so that experts can focus on invention and exploration.
“The MIF’s purpose is to create a community of talented future research leaders, exchanging ideas with academic colleagues and accelerating the discovery process,” said Unilever. “Our partnership here allows us to tap into the best minds and resources in robotics, which strengthens our insights and capabilities to power next-level innovation, scientific discovery, and produce products with superior performance.”
Will robot management be a job of the future? CGT thinks so. Find out more.
Meet the Robots
Ariana
Beauty bot Ariana is preparing mass amounts of hair fiber samples in mere seconds in order to create hair products for Unilever’s brands, including Dove’s Intensive Repair line. Using a patented Fiber Repair Actives technology, Unilever can help consumers reconstruct inner hair fibers to reduce breakage and repair from within the hair strand.
Shirley
This robot is helping to expedite and mimic the process of hair washing and rising, running through 120 samples of hair every 24 hours. Shirley can rise, detangle, and blow dry hair, speeding up the analysis process so researchers can create accurate haircare product formulas, such as for the TRESemmé’s Colour Radiance Booste product line. The range of products uses tech that Shirley helped invent in order to better protect hair surfaces and keep color vibrant longer within hair fibers.
Gwen
Robot Gwen plays an important role in the sensory aspect of products, generating, measuring, and analyzing foam. As Unilever uses foam in many of its products to deliver ingredients, the company said it’s important it can accurately attribute performance related to the amount, quality, and type of bubbles and froth.
“Understanding its physical, chemical and consumer relevance is important in product development,” said the company.
The Role of AI and Data
Along with robotics, the company has also heavily invested in artificial intelligence, an advance that it said allows Unilever to parse through “vast quantities of data in record time” in order to make discoveries and create new formulas.
For example, for the company’s Hourglass Confession Red Zero lipstick, Unilever used AI to quickly analyze different color combinations before landing on a specific pigment — a research process that would normally take millions of physical experiments to replicate.
The company has filed more than 200 patents between 2022 and 2022 using this type of invaluable data, investing more than 100 million euro into its innovation hub in order to benefit from these types of technologies.
“We are nothing without our science-backed products,” said Samantha Samaras, head of science and technology, Unilever Beauty & Wellbeing and Personal Care, in a statement.
Unilever’s relationship with data-powered innovation only grows stronger, as showcased by the company’s commitment to improve digital organization and data warehousing across the enterprise by moving entirely to the cloud.
Under the new leadership of CEO Hein Schumacher, who has a long track record of transforming supply chains with sustainable and automated technology, it’s expected that Unilever will continue on this path.
An Industry-Wide Effort?
Automation and artificial intelligence go hand-in-hand, and a growing number of consumer goods companies are implementing both as they scale their supply chain transformations, focusing on either end-to-end reinvention or putting special emphasis on a particular area.
One such area? According to IDC’s Futurescape report, by 2023, 50% of all supply chain forecasts will be automated through the use of artificial Intelligence.
Other areas of focus include supply chain workforce, merchandising, fulfillment, and more.
Take, for example, Kimberly-Clark, which is leveraging an AI-enabled tool to automate the distribution planning and deployment process, as well as improve scheduling. Additionally, Mondelez International chief sales and marketing officer Martin Renaud said earlier this year that more than 1 million stores have access to its automated intelligence-enabled “suggested other” function, which has so far freed up representatives to engage 45% of more time in robust selling vs. administrative tasks.
