Underwriters Laboratories (UL) inaugurates state-of-the-art testing facility in Bangalore

Online, March 25, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Bangalore, 24 March, 2010: Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the global leader in product safety testing and certification, today celebrated the opening of its first state-of-the-art testing facility in Bangalore, India. The lab opening reinforces UL's commitment to India's manufacturing industry and is currently the largest foreign investment for any product safety testing company.
Catering to manufacturers throughout India and the surrounding Asia/Emerging Markets region, the comprehensive 40,000 square-foot testing facility will offer performance, safety and compliance testing for products and provide global market access services to help reduce time-to-market. The comprehensive laboratory will specialize in product categories including electrical power & controls, appliances, industrial control equipment, lighting, information technology and medical equipment, motors & pumps, and other related categories.
"Given the projected growth of the Indian electrical industry for the next decade, Underwriters Laboratories is proud to strengthen its Indian footprint as we strive to provide the best in certification and testing, industry-oriented research and technology development," said Keith Williams, president and CEO for UL. "Manufacturers throughout India and the emerging markets region are known for the innovation and drive to be globally competitive. It is our hope that this facility will prove to be a growth facilitator and accelerator by testing and certifying products to international standards, ultimately helping them get safer products to market faster anywhere in the world."
"UL is uniquely positioned in India with the deep technical knowledge and local testing capability to certify products manufactured here and help leverage the potential in the global market," said R.A. Venkitachalam, UL's vice president and managing director of Emerging Markets. "Being one of the world's largest Conformity Assessment Service Providers and backed by more than 115 years of experience in product testing and inspection, UL routinely assesses more than 19,000 types of products, systems and processes around the world."
UL invested close to USD 6 M to set up the 40,000 square-foot facility in India. A unique feature of the facility is that many of the lab capabilities have been designed taking into account specified customer requirements for product performance and developmental testing in addition to safety compliance testing. The availability of these facilities in India will reduce the cost and time to market considerably. UL's worldwide family of companies and network of service providers includes 68 laboratories, testing and certification facilities serving customers with business operations. Currently there are 120 UL inspection centers worldwide and the company has customers in over 102 countries.