Henkel Adhesive Technologies India inaugurated the Henkel Flexible Packaging Academy in Navi Mumbai on February 18 among a large gathering of company staff and customers. Henkel’s global head for flexible packaging adhesives, Ralf Grauel cut the red ribbon and unveiled the plaque. The academy will provide formal training on lamination technology to entrepreneurs, production managers, supervisors, operators, and quality control professionals of the flexible packaging industry. The Indian academy is the third such academy after Germany and China and will meet the demands of the Indian, Middle East and African markets. The certified training programme will be provided in association with the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP). Shardul Sharma reports.
At the inaugural ceremony, Grauel said, “With the dynamic packaging trends in different segments like FMCG, food and beverages and pharma, there is a growing demand for advanced packaging solutions. The conventional materials have been replaced with flexible packaging materials. Addressing these demands, we have introduced Henkel Flexible Packaging Academy to enable manufacturers to fulfill the demands of the growing industry.”
In order to impart practical training the academy is equipped with a Comexi Nexus dual laminating machine. Given Nexus’ modular design, multiple solutions are possible irrespective of whether it is for food, pharmaceutical packaging, paper, labels, and more. The machine’s coating unit is designed with maximum modularity and flexibility, using interchangeable carriages. Nexus can supply carriages of rotogravure, flexography, semiFlexo, PVdC and solventless, as well as coatings to register like cold-seal.
In addition to the Comexi Nexus, the academy also has a fully equipped training room, classrooms and testing instruments. The training sessions include topics on printing, lamination, web handling, finished product testing, substrates, their properties and material handling. The academy will be steered by a team of experts from across the world including an in-house technical team of Henkel each of whom have more than 20 years of experience in the industry. As a knowledge partner, IIP will also be involved in imparting the training.
The certification process will be in two stages. In the first stage a Participation Certificate will be awarded after completion of a five-day training programme and in the second stage a Completion Certificate will be awarded after three months of reviewing a participant’s performance on the shop floor post training. The certificates will be jointly issued by Henkel and IIP. The first batch comprising of ten participants starts in March.
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“Being a standalone entity, this academy will provide not only training but will also run trials and experiments on the machine which is almost like a full-fledged production machine and can help customers solve problems. So, we can derive dual benefit from this academy,” Jeremy Hunter, president, Henkel India said. “Although adhesive is a low-cost element but if it is misused or misapplied the cost is huge if we factor in the cost of the film and machine time. So what we are trying to do is upskill the industry on how to improve efficiency and reduce waste.” Henkel also expects that the training programme will create greater awareness in the industry about innovation and development.
Rudiger Schmitz, business director — flexible packaging, Henkel-IMEA, said, “This programme will create awareness in the market about the latest innovation and development. Also, it would help us create adhesives for the Indian, Middle East and African markets faster than we did before.”
