Their daily business: standards, controls, checks, chemical tests, analyses, certifications. Their name is unknown on the labels, and yet, they work for the largest cosmetics companies, everywhere in the world. The managers of the SGS Life Sciences Services Department have welcome CosmeticOBS-L’Observatoire des Cosmétiques in their office and laboratories in Clichy, near Paris. A report.
Their work deals with sectors such as agriculture, oil, car or pharmaceutical industries. Their customers are manufacturers, governments or official bodies. They perform certifications, controls, analyses, risk management. They suggest to give technical advice or to train people. Their skills range from chemicals to the environment, to consumer goods … that comprise cosmetics.
To be everywhere, doing the same everywhere
SGS is a worldwide group, with 67,000 people working in 1,000 laboratories in 140 countries. Everywhere, the same services, the same requirements, the same references, the same computerized management system, the same services' quality. What is done in Paris, can be duplicated in Germany, Canada, Taiwan or Hong-Kong, close to the customers, exactly the same way. Florent Hediard, the Marketing Manager of the Life Sciences Services Department, defines its mission:
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to help our customers where they are, and the world over, to check, certify, verify and inspect their products: a guarantee of an ever increasing quality and safety.
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In this large organization, the Life Sciences Services Department is dedicated to the health sector. Obviously focused on the pharmaceutical industry, its 17 laboratories may answer requests for quality control (of raw materials or of packaging materials), for bio-analysis, using …
