The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Technical decision · 2019–2025
Kolmar Korea digitized cosmetics process data, cut defects 42%, and built an AI factory
Korea's cosmetics ODM standardized production data from 2019, halved defect rates, and now builds AI to self-optimize lines.
Kolmar Korea
The solution
Kolmar Korea is the cosmetics industry's leading original design manufacturer, producing goods for global beauty brands. In 2019 it began building its smart-factory system, and the critical move was refining source data: production process data was standardized across the plant so quality could be tracked and controlled at every step.
The payoff was a 42% reduction in manufacturing defect rates. That data foundation is what makes the next stage possible: an AI factory that goes beyond automation, where artificial intelligence analyzes real-time data and autonomously optimizes production processes.
In 2025 Kolmar was selected as the only cosmetics company to lead the industry ministry's AI Factory Alliance bio division. Its plan modularizes production planning, manufacturing, quality control and filling-packaging, applies AI models to push process accuracy above 95%, and reduces rework while making multi-product, small-batch production lines viable.
Why it worked
- Standardized process data made defects traceable, which is the precondition for reducing them
- AI can only optimize processes it can see; clean data from 2019 became the training ground
- Modularizing processes lets AI models be applied per function instead of replacing the whole plant
- The 42% defect reduction proved the method before the group committed to autonomous production
- Cosmetics ODM demands multi-product small batches, where process accuracy directly cuts rework cost
What can be applied
Automation pays only after the data is clean and standardized; the 42% defect cut came from data discipline, not robots.
Aftermath
Kolmar plans to roll the AI factory across its domestic and overseas plants and group companies including Kolmar BNH (health foods), HK Inno.N (pharmaceuticals) and Yeonwoo (packaging), while sharing success cases with the wider Korean cosmetics industry through the AI Factory Alliance through 2029.
Sources
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