Indonesia's drug and food authority BPOM counts 1,684 cosmetics manufacturers in the country, roughly 85 percent of them small and medium enterprises. The market is projected to pass US$10 billion in 2026 and grows about 6.3 percent a year according to Ministry of Industry figures. Plenty of new plants are going up, and nearly all of them stall on the same question: what kind of wall passes a CPKB inspection?
The 2026 rule change: no more pre-approved floor plans
BPOM Regulation No. 8 of 2026 on CPKB certification, Indonesia's Good Manufacturing Practice scheme for cosmetics, was signed on 21 April 2026 and took effect on 29 April 2026, revoking Regulation No. 33 of 2021. Two changes land straight on the construction site: building layout approval is abolished, and the whole certification flow moves into the OSS licensing system. (BPOM press release)
For owners, dropping layout approval cuts months of waiting. The risk does not disappear, though; it simply moves. Layout mistakes used to surface at the drawing board. Now they surface during inspection, when walls are already standing and machinery has been installed. Demolishing masonry partitions at that stage costs far more than specifying the right wall system on day one.
Your licence class decides how far you need to go. Class A plants may make every form of cosmetic preparation, including baby products and items containing sunscreen, skin-lightening agents, antiseptics or anti-dandruff actives. Class B is limited to simple technology and barred from that group. If you plan to move up later, build class A walls from the start.
What CPKB actually asks of a wall
The technical guideline is still BPOM Regulation No. 25 of 2019 as amended by Regulation No. 31 of 2020. The wording is short, and that is exactly the problem: contractors read it too loosely. Wall and ceiling surfaces must be smooth, even, watertight, and easy to maintain and clean. Junctions between floor, wall and ceiling should be coved so dust cannot collect in corners.
ISO 22716, the cosmetics GMP standard used across ASEAN, says much the same in clause 4. Floors, walls, ceilings and windows should be built for easy cleaning, with corners, recesses and projections kept to a minimum. Windows should be non-opening. Pipes and ducts should not touch walls; hang them on brackets so the gap can still be wiped.
The same standard asks for ventilation sufficient for the production operations being run, and for pipework installed so that drips or condensation never reach materials, products or working surfaces. In the Indonesian climate those two clauses meet: humid weighing and compounding rooms condense water on cold pipes, and water dripping onto a porous wall eventually becomes a mould finding.
Rendered brickwork almost never meets that brief. Joints, hairline cracks and square 90-degree corners are where talc dust and spilled emulsion settle. Sandwich panels with pre-coated steel skins give a continuous surface that tolerates daily wet cleaning, which is why they became the default in food production wall standards as well.
Choosing the core: EPS, PIR or rockwool
All three are sold in Indonesia with 0.3-0.5 mm steel skins and 1000 or 1050 mm cover widths. The core is what separates them:
- EPS - thermal conductivity 0.033-0.038 W/mK, the cheapest option. Fine for secondary packing rooms and raw material stores with no elevated fire demand.
- PU/PIR - 0.022-0.026 W/mK, the most energy-efficient per millimetre of thickness. The pick for tightly air-conditioned rooms or temperature-controlled active ingredient stores.
- Rockwool - 0.038-0.042 W/mK, but non-combustible and acoustically useful. Worth specifying where production rooms adjoin boilers, generator rooms, alcohol stores or diesel tanks.
Worth stating plainly: CPKB sets no fire class for panels. Building fire protection rules and your insurer do. Ask the manufacturer for an EN 13501-1 reaction-to-fire test report and load-deflection tables derived by the EN 14509 method, and do not settle for a brochure. Our fire rated panel guide covers how to read them.
The details that decide the inspection
A correctly chosen panel can still fail on jointing detail. These five are the usual findings:
- Sanitary coving at every floor-to-wall and wall-to-ceiling junction, with a real radius rather than an angle trim.
- Tight, sealed panel joints using a neutral-cure sealant that does not shrink and resists alkaline cleaners.
- Hidden-screw fixing inside production areas, because exposed fastener heads are dust shelves.
- Pipe, cable and duct penetrations fully sealed, clear of the wall face, and still cleanable.
- Walkable panel ceilings so HVAC servicing happens from above instead of inside the clean space.
One detail gets missed again and again: where the panel meets the epoxy floor. Coving should go in after the floor coating is finished and be sealed on both sides, not sandwiched halfway through the works. Reverse that order and you leave a hairline gap at the base of the wall, invisible from a distance but always found when an inspector runs a hand along the corner.
For open filling rooms, many plants voluntarily step up to ISO 14644-1 Class 8 air cleanliness with a 10-15 Pa pressure difference against the corridor. That is industry practice, not a CPKB obligation. If you take that route the panel envelope has to be genuinely airtight, or the pressure cascade will not hold. The air supply hardware is covered in our BFU, FFU and LAF explainer.
Budget and work sequence
A survey of supplier price lists between June and August 2026 puts installed wall panels at roughly IDR 350,000-550,000 per square metre for 50-75 mm thickness, with labour-only installation at IDR 150,000-230,000 per square metre. Coving, doors and inspection windows are priced separately and often add 15-25 percent on top of the panel value.
A safe sequence: lock the layout and material flow first, then set panel thickness room by room, then order doors and accessories together with the panels. Panels usually arrive quickly. Hygienic doors and coving ordered late are the single most common reason these fit-outs slip.
FAQ
Does CPKB require a certified cleanroom in a cosmetics plant?
No. CPKB asks for premises that are easy to clean, protected from contamination and adequately ventilated, not for a specific air cleanliness class. An ISO 14644 class becomes relevant when your process fills product in the open, or when an export buyer writes the requirement into the contract.
How thick should sandwich panels be for a cosmetics production room?
For internal partitions inside an existing building, 50 mm is usually enough both structurally and hygienically. Step up to 75-100 mm where rooms are fully air-conditioned, where the wall separates two different temperature zones, or where higher acoustic and fire performance is needed.
Can panels be installed in a leased building?
Yes, and that is one of their advantages. A modular panel system stands on its own framing, can be dismantled when the lease ends, and adds no permanent load to the building structure the way masonry walls do.
