Rexam unveils new Innovation Centre at Buffalo Grove

The new Innovation Center launched by the Rexam Personal Care Division on February 9, is the latest example of the firm's ongoing commitment to customer success through the growth of long-term business partnerships.

The Center's central location, just minutes from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, further encourages customer collaboration on global packaging solutions that build brands and bottom lines. From product development to retail display, the new Buffalo Grove facility represents the value Rexam brings to its customer relationships and underscores the company's dedication to innovation.

"Innovation is the lifeblood of our business," said Misha Riveros-Jacobson, Managing Director, Rexam Personal Care Division, at the opening day ribbon-cutting ceremony. "In combination with our market-facing organizational structure, our focus on innovation remains a key strategic driver for our company and a reason the world's biggest and best consumer brand owners come to us to help build their businesses."

Added Eric Soubeiran, the Division's Marketing & Innovation Director, "Innovation drives our industry, now more than ever, given the volume of new product introductions, accelerated retail consolidation and the challenging economic environment consumers face. There are those in our industry who believe that, in difficult times, the prudent approach is to cut budgets on innovation. This is antithetical to our approach," he said.

"In today's world, brands must offer personal care products that delight consumers," he said. "Innovation is critical to the success of our customers - savvy marketers who understand the need for an enhanced end-user experience, delivered through innovative packaging solutions."

The new Innovation Center is headed by Jill McCurdy, Director of Innovation, Rexam Personal Care Division. According to McCurdy, understanding customers and consumers is the heart and soul of what the new Center is all about. "And it's important to understand that ‘innovation' means many things: a new formulation, a twist on an existing product, or a transformational, all-new, product," she said. "Whether it's a new formulation, the smoothness of a lipstick mechanism or the quality of a closing click feature or package material, our approach is to work with our customers to develop new products and processes, through the prism of consumer ethnographic and anthropologic factors.

"Our rigorous approach to understanding customer and consumer drivers enables us to indentify and exploit new marketplace opportunities," she said. "Further, what's being done at Buffalo Grove is a scalable process - this new facility can be rolled out to other Rexam Innovation Centers, worldwide."

The massive (insert square footage or other metric) Innovation Center space is designed to encourage creativity and challenge conventional thinking. It is a light, bright, exciting environment that allows Rexam-customer cross-functional teams to - for example - recreate retail planograms and examine consumer interaction with actual products.