BASF Coatings, BASF Group’s company specialized in paints and coatings industry, has opened a new training center for automotive refinishing in Cesano Maderno, Italy, reported the company on its site.
The new Refinish Competence Center (RCC) will offer customers an opportunity to learn, practice and fully master the use of BASF's automotive refinish products. Training sessions and workshops have been developed and structured in order to enhance the productivity of bodyshops and to increase their efficiency and competitiveness.
The new training center, with an investment of more than EUR2.7 million and an area of 1,200 square meters, will train on average 800 people a year including technicians and end users yearly.
The new Italian RCC, which expands the BASF’s global Refinish Competence Center network, represents a center of excellence exhibiting some of the most advanced technologies and equipment. It offers two lines specifically devoted to small damage repair, two top-of-the-notch paint booths, a painting mixing station and a state-of-the-art infrared drying system. The layout has been planned according to the standards of the BASF RCC policy. The centers serve as training facility and marketing platform for BASF Coatings refinish brands and the equipment partners.
"The new Refinish Competence Centre has been designed with a strong focus on our customers," added Renato Chiesa, Managing Director of BASF Coatings in Italy. "In the current complex market environment, we believe that our center will offer bodyshops additional tools that will contribute to increase the efficiency level and the profitability of their business."
We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, as part of BASF's major innovation investment in China, the company opened the first Innovation Campus Asia Pacific and its new Greater China headquarters at its site in Pudong, Shanghai, in late 2012. The investment amounts to EUR 55 million. With this expansion the company's site will be one of BASF's largest outside of Germany. The further expansion of the facility is also planned.
In the Coatings Division, BASF develops, produces and markets a high-quality range of innovative automotive OEM coatings, automotive refinishes and industrial coatings as well as decorative paints. BASF has significant market positions in the Coatings sector in Europe, North America, South America and the Asia Pacific region. In 2012 t he Coatings Division of the BASF Group achieved global sales of nearly EUR3 billion.
BASF is the leading chemical company. It produces a wide range of chemicals, for example solvents, amines, resins, glues, electronic-grade chemicals, industrial gases, basic petrochemicals and inorganic chemicals. The most important customers for this segment are the pharmaceutical, construction, textile and automotive industries.