Henkel officially opened its new application centre on 6 March, in Vellore, India, marking the inauguration of its first Centre of Excellence in the region. The new centre will serve as a beacon of Henkel's latest sustainable adhesive solutions for the sports industry, especially for footwear automation, and enable Henkel to drive innovation towards manufacturing excellence.
"Henkel is committed to improving people's living spaces and style with high-impact, sustainable solutions. We have placed a particular focus on sustainability in the Indian market, and our investment is aligned with the goals of the Indian Footwear and Leather Development Programme (IFLDP)," said Dr Rajat Agarwal, Global Head of Lifestyle at Henkel Adhesive Technologies. "With novel solutions, we enable customers to achieve sustainability targets and purposeful growth. This new centre will further enable us to support the development of the footwear sector in terms of productivity, employment and sustainability, ultimately contributing to India's economic upgrading."
Henkel is constantly expanding its global innovation footprint to better adapt to ever-changing market trends. The application centre in Vellore will be a part of Henkel's global network of application, product development and design centres across different countries, including China, Indonesia and Vietnam. By leveraging state-of-the-art facilities, Henkel will scale competence for innovation and digitalisation, allowing more agility to speed up time-to-market.
The sports industry currently faces three major challenges — increasing demands for more sustainable production processes, rising labour costs and production safety. Henkel enables customers to address these challenges with a diverse technology portfolio that includes solutions of toluene-free, water-based and PUR hot melt automation etc.
The new application centre fully displays Henkel's industry-leading solutions with advanced facilities and machines that facilitate testing and trials, with solid future-oriented projects already in the pipeline. It offers a platform for labs and factories to exchange technologies ideation and validation.
With the purpose "Pioneers at Heart for the Good of Generations", Henkel endeavours to take the initiative across three pillars — environmental, social and governance (ESG) — to drive purposeful growth for the industry. Amid Industry 4.0 and digitalisation transformation, the footwear sector demands a higher quality labour force. Together with India's Government and academies, Henkel will roll out further workforce development projects to equip personnel with automation expertise and a future-oriented mindset, promoting a skilled and world-leading workforce ecosystem for the industry, and adding impetus to local employment.
As Henkel continues to drive innovative solutions, it has also defined the intention of sustainable fashion — to reduce the impact on the environment and enrich the value of footwear and apparel. With its vision "Less Taken, More Given", the Sports and Fashion team at Henkel Adhesive Technologies is dedicated to creating value for the environment and society with industry-leading sustainable solutions. In the future, Henkel will work more closely with industry partners, combining its expert knowledge with chemical expertise to create long-lasting advantages for future needs.
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