2005 FINAT Congress

‘Success through excellence’ is the theme for the 2005 FINAT Congress.

Held jointly with GIPEA – Italy’s national label association – in Baveno, on the shores of Lago Maggiore, the FINAT Congress programme is designed to brief label converters and suppliers on current industry status, trends, opportunities, and threats; and to inspire delegates – drawn from all levels of FINAT membership, from converters to coaters and laminators, raw material suppliers, press and press ancillaries manufacturers – with some pertinent success stories from many parts of the global labelling community.

The keynote speaker in the opening ‘industry update’ session is Andrea Pininfarina – a name synonymous with design excellence and success in the automotive field.  A macro economic update from Angelo Barrel, until recently MD of another Italian company world-famous for excellence – Mondadori – follows; and GIPEA’s President, Alberto Ghiotto, provides an overview of the current label market in Italy.  The annual labelstock update and an examination of the legal challenges of international trade complete the session.

RFID tagging is the focus of the second session, on innovations and trends; and in the final session, the floor is turned over to converters from many corners of the world, who present their own stories of achieving success through excellence in a variety of ways: managing generation change; quality management; specialisation; niche marketing in pharmaceuticals; lean manufacturing; digital applications; and in-mould labelling.  The session concludes with an overview of success in label industry waste management in Italy.

FINAT President Fitz Beglinger then closes the formal proceedings – but delegates are invited to attend, in the afternoon, a series of open FINAT committee meetings as well as a workshop on the new FINAT End User Study 2005, for members considering buying it.

Full programme details and information on registration are available via the website, http://www.finat.com/.