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Harshal Pitambar Borole has been with Milliken in Pune, India, since the middle of 2019, working as an advanced development chemist with the Technical Service and Development Department in Performance Colorants and Ingredients.

Tell us a bit about your role at Milliken, what does it involve?

My work involves color matching in consumer products goods as well as polyurethane (PU) foam. In addition to this, I specifically work on new application/product development for consumer-packaged goods. Recently our team commercialized an adjunct based on the Alba Pura platform. This adjunct helps deliver a whitening benefit to a detergent powder both in the shade and sunlight. All the major detergent manufacturing brands are working with us on this technology.

I am also actively involved in improvising an adjunct as well as exploring an alternative delivery mechanism for Alba Pura blends. The concept is not to just develop a product, but to have complete knowledge management around the whitening additives and delivery mechanisms.

What are the main ways you can help Milliken’s customers?

I help Milliken’s customers by developing solutions that make products attractive, unique, and sustainable and by making customers’ processes easy, helping them to establish value propositions by preparing demos and protocols. We also work on quick response times, which helps our customers a great deal. I work mainly with customers on the Indian subcontinent and other regional technical service centres for a few joint projects, such as Alba Pura.

I bring hands-on experience in consumer-packaged goods from my previous assignments and education. This practical experience and knowledge help me to deliver technical support and recommend products from Milliken’s portfolio as per customer needs. We also work closely as a group on various customer needs and use our collective expertise to work smartly.

What does a typical week look like for you?

My priority is my color matching work and technical service development as well as development projects in the pipeline. I also undertake quality analysis and quality control work in addition to the analysis and collection of data and keeping up with the latest science and technical developments with literature reviews.

What is your favourite part of the job?

There are many things that I enjoy about my position. I love that I am continually challenged and learn something new every day and I like that my work positively impacts customers and is therefore acknowledged and appreciated internally and externally.

I also love my team. Everyone I work with is reliable and whilst we all do different things we contribute to a larger goal. Data generation and analysis are important in my role, and accuracy is the sword we live by. But my very favorite thing is the deployment of the products I developed, which gives me great satisfaction.  

Do you have a particular customer success story or a highlight that you are proud of?

I’m proud of the successful Keyfluor Puratint BW commercial production batch after several attempts on a pilot level. It is difficult to incorporate a mixture of optical brighteners and polymeric whitening enhancers in a white powder and we have been able to optimize the aesthetics and bleed performance of the adjunct to meet customer requirements. Now we are seeing repeated orders from various customers.

What’s your favourite Milliken memory?

When we got our Alba Pura adjunct technically successful at RSPL, one of the biggest detergent powder manufacturers in the region.

What’s special about Milliken’s Chemical business?

The culture of Milliken is like a family to me. Everyone around is so understanding and always ready to help and guide. Also, I love that the Performance Colorants and Ingredients business unit always emphasizes the creation of unique products which are environmentally friendly, have user flexibility and have numerous benefits to the end user.

What’s one piece of advice you have for someone looking for a job or internship at Milliken?

Trust and join this company. Be open minded and ready to learn. Let your passion and enthusiasm shine through. Your enthusiasm will catch the attention of others and should inspire you to work harder and learn and do more.