Personal protective equipment manufacturer Ansell Limited has announced the opening of its second Ansell Xperience & Innovation Studio (AXIS), located near Coimbra, Portugal. The centre is intended to serve the European market and opens nearly a year after the very first AXIS facility launched in Alpharetta, Georgia, United States, in October 2025.
Three pillars: training, testing and co-creation
Ansell describes AXIS as an immersive, collaborative environment focused on current workplace safety challenges. The concept rests on three pillars. First, safety experts guide visitors through best practices and emerging techniques. Second, the centre offers hands-on laboratory experiences, where new products are tested under simulated hazardous conditions. Third, AXIS facilitates joint development projects, in which Ansell and customers work together on practical, scalable safety solutions.
The Portuguese site was deliberately located next to one of Ansell’s own manufacturing facilities, which has produced industrial gloves for the European market for more than thirty years. As a result, visitors can not only attend training sessions but also tour the plant and see how products are actually made.
Expanding a global training concept
The first AXIS facility in Alpharetta launched last year with an investment of roughly $2 million and the announcement of forty new local jobs. At the time, then-Ansell chief executive Neil Salmon explained that the goal was to create spaces where partners could collaborate on both immediate safety issues and future innovations. With the second site in Portugal, the company is now extending that model to Europe as well.
Current CEO Nathalie Ahlström commented on the expansion: “We continue to strengthen our R&D organisation to adopt new technologies, extend our product expertise, and capture future growth opportunities.” For an international HSE audience, this move is relevant because it fits a broader trend: manufacturers of personal protective equipment are increasingly turning to experiential, hands-on training rather than relying solely on theoretical instruction. Simulations of real-world hazard situations allow safety professionals to evaluate products and procedures before they are deployed on the shop floor, which can contribute to better risk assessment and faster adoption of new protective equipment.
Ansell operates in more than one hundred countries worldwide and says it supplies protective equipment daily to over 10 million workers. The company, with more than 130 years of history in the sector, owns brands including HyFlex, Microflex, TouchNTuff and KleenGuard.
Source: Ansell Unveils AXIS Portugal, Immersive Labs Powering the Future of Safety Innovation, September 21, 2026
Additional research: Global Atlanta – AXIS Alpharetta, Manufacturing Chemist – AXIS Portugal
