Avery Dennison opens new center in Pune

Avery Dennison has inaugurated its Innovation and Knowledge Center in Pune, India, which will support customers, partners and employees across South Asia Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa (SAPSSA) with knowledge sharing and certification programs.
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Darren Milligan, senior marketing director, SAPSSA at Avery Dennison, explains: ‘The Avery Dennison Innovation and Knowledge Center is made up of two key centers. The Knowledge Center, in collaboration with our industry partners, is an end-to-end training facility across both conventional and digital platforms. The Innovation Center features a highly qualified and connected research and development team with material science and analytical capability. Our investment to integrate these two centers into a single location will accelerate our product development and ability to deliver faster solutions to meet customers’ requirements.’ 

The site houses machinery from various supplier partners including HP Indigo, Gallus, Flint Group, DuPont and Esko, among others. It also includes wide format printing equipment to cater to the expanding graphic arts industry. 

‘We are in advanced discussion with few new partners to help enable us to impart resources and knowledge for imparting education on in variable information printing technology,’ says Pankaj Bhardwaj, senior director and general manager, Labels and Graphic Materials, South Asia at Avery Dennison. ‘As technology changes, we will further look at getting in newer technologies and machines.’ 

Anil Sharma, vice president and general manager, Label and Graphic Materials, Avery Dennison, SAPSSA, says: ‘We are expanding not only labels but also printing technology that cuts across the entire space so we have both flexo and digital printing processes. In digital technology, we are looking at materials specific to graphics as well as digital and packaging industry.’ With a Gallus ECS 340 flexo press and HP Indigo WS 6600 digital label press, the Center is now equipped to develop prototypes of new labelstock and adhesives, and test them on a press in-house. 

The label converting facility at the center is primarily being used for training, product benchmarking and product development. ‘The material science lab helps us research the wide range of questions printers ask. They make themselves heard and we convert that insight into a plausible product,’ Bhardwaj adds. 

‘The emphasis is on providing the complete experience to clients,’ continues Sharma. ‘This center will continue to expand the industry with its synergies, provide best quality analytics and product development capability. We also have a social agenda to train young kids and offer skilled workforce to the industry. This center complements our vision and will help us expand industry capability in the entire region.’ 

Concluding by reinforcing the need of the hour in the Indian market, Bhardwaj says: ‘We are at a time when the Indian economy is poised to grow very fast and so the consumption of labels will increase. The pressure-sensitive label penetration in India is relatively lower than other countries and so there is enough headroom to expand which can be done when all label printers in the country work in tandem. Avery Dennison is making efforts in that direction. We have dedicated business development people who educate printers on benefits of converting to pressure-sensitive labels. However, it is important for existing label printers to further educate fellow printers to grow this industry. Printers need to focus on increasing the industry size.’