P&G inaugurates innovation center in Singapore

Consumer goods industry giant Proctor & Gamble officially opened an innovation center in Singapore on Friday, housing as many as 254 research laboratories. The research facility will be an innovation center for the company's global hair care, skin care, fragrances, fabric care, home care and health and grooming products, it said. It was inaugurated at a ceremony with Kirk Wagar, the U.S. ambassador to Singapore, and Tharman Shanmugaratnam, deputy prime minister and minister for finance of Singapore. The new facility, which the company said is the largest private research facilities in Singapore, combines the company's "best-in- class research and development and consumer research capabilities" to target consumers in Asia and elsewhere, said Kathleen Fish, chief technology officer of P&G. The innovation process begins with insights at the center's model consumer home, where scientists engage with consumers to discover unmet needs before the laboratories conduct research, it said