The centre will allow Bobst to offer a wide range of consultancy and support services, including working closely with  folding carton suppliers to conduct demo, run customers special jobs and process training programmes.
 
The Competence Centre, located at Bobst’s headquarters in Pune, is also part of its strategy to better serve its Indian customers with local resources. "This Centre will hopefully have an answer to every finishing problem in packaging for our Indian customers," said Bobst Group’s CEO Jean Pascal Bobst, who inaugurated the Centre. "The focus of the Centre will, therefore, be on application approach and training."
 
Bobst India has equipped the Competence Centre with a NovaCut and an ExpertFold with few more machinery to come in soon, to provide the high-end performance and scalability to the prospective users of the centre.
 
According to Subhasis Roy, market director for business unit sheetfed for India, SEA, South Africa and Middle East at Bobst, India is huge in terms of population and economy; the trends in the print and packaging markets are rapidly changing with interest for efficient, high  productive and better technology equipment continuously rising.

"Opening the Competence Centre in India is a significant step for Bobst in consolidating its leadership position in the Indian market. Here customers can turn their ideas into marketable applications with commercial value."
 
Bobst, headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland designs, builds and delivers a wide range of die-cutters, folder-gluers, foil stamping machines, window patching machines and flexo post print converting kit. Bobst has set up the manufacturing of folder-gluers in India in 2010 in Pirangut, Pune, which is a global manufacturing unit with an exclusive team. The plant manufactures three levels of technology, the Ambition, the VisionFold and the ExpertFold.
 
Roy added: "Starting operations from India was a strategic decision – that of differentiating and reducing risks. It has brought us closer to the local market, made us competitive and brought synergies to our products. In short, it has allowed Bobst to lead the growth and evolution of packaging products not only in India but in the Indian Subcontinent too."