Project Overview
Brembo Brakes Founded in 1961 in Italy, Brembo has built a global manufacturing and innovation footprint with 25 production plants, nine R&D centres, and 2024 revenues of €3,840.6 million, making it one of the most recognized names in braking technology worldwide.
Brembo Brakes India partnered with Hiotron to accelerate its digital manufacturing journey by transforming critical shopfloor processes into one connected, intelligent system. The objective was to reduce manual dependency, improve real-time visibility, strengthen process control, and create a future-ready production environment across planning, operator management, inventory, reporting, traceability, and issue escalation.
Business Challenge
Brembo was managing several important production activities through spreadsheets, paper records, verbal communication, and disconnected systems. This created delays, reduced visibility, and increased dependency on manual follow-up across the plant.
- Manual production planning: Planning was managed through spreadsheets and verbal communication, making it harder to align priorities and respond quickly to line changes.
- Limited real-time data visibility: Production, rejection, and loss data required manual collection and reporting, which slowed decision-making and increased the risk of errors.
- Operator skill control challenges: Operator skill validation was a manual process, making it difficult to ensure that the right operator with the right skill was deployed at the right station.
- Inventory and residual quantity issues: Material shortage signaling depended heavily on operator judgment, while residual quantity handling involved multiple manual steps and a higher risk of part mix-ups.
- Weak component-level traceability: Tracking BOM-level batches across different models was difficult, making root-cause analysis and recall actions slower whenever a customer quality issue occurred.
- Paper-based process checklists: Setup checklists, traceability records, and poka-yoke checks depended on manual compliance, creating the risk of skipped steps and weak SOP adherence.
- Manual reporting: Reports completely depended on paper and manual effort, delaying issue resolution and reducing accountability.
Hiotron Solution
Hiotron implemented a connected digital platform that brought together planning, real-time data capture, operator authentication, inventory visibility, BOM traceability, checklist enforcement, notifications, and reporting into one streamlined manufacturing solution.
- Digital production planning: Hiotron enabled line-side digital planning so operators could see upcoming production priorities directly on the line, while planners could monitor execution and losses in real time.
- Real-time production intelligence: The platform captured production, rejection, and loss data live, calculated key KPIs automatically, and delivered dashboards and reports for faster decisions.
- Operator skill authentication: Station-wise operator skill validation was digitized using biometric-based authentication, ensuring the right operator was assigned to the right machine or line.
- Smart inventory management: The system tracked inventory conditions, generated automatic shortage alerts, and improved traceability of child parts through digital identification and monitoring.
- BOM-level batch traceability: Hiotron enabled BOM-level traceability for every model manufactured. Each BOM component batch was scanned into the system, allowing Brembo to maintain a complete digital record of every batch used in every finished part.
- Faster quality investigation and recall readiness: If any assembled part later showed a quality issue at the customer end, Brembo could quickly identify other finished goods and BOM batches linked to the same rejected batch. This made trace-back, containment, and recall actions much faster and more reliable.
- Digital setup, traceability, and poka-yoke checklists: Setup checklist, traceability report, and poka-yoke checklist activities were digitized and linked to standard operating procedures. Operators were required to complete these checks in sequence before starting the line.
- Process interlocking for SOP adherence: If any required checklist step was skipped, the system did not allow the line to start. This ensured strong process discipline and kept operator adherence aligned with standard procedures.
- Residual quantity control: Hiotron digitized the tallying and tagging of residual child parts, reducing multiple handling, preventing mix-ups, and improving warehouse coordination.
- Automated notifications and escalation: The solution enabled alerts through digital channels, real-time status updates, escalation workflows, and scheduled report delivery for faster issue resolution.
- Accurate and consistent reporting: Hiotron replaced manual reporting with structured, automated reports that improved visibility, accountability, and operational control.
Business Impact
With Hiotron’s solution, Brembo gained stronger control over production planning, shopfloor visibility, operator deployment, material flow, and issue management. BOM-level batch traceability improved root-cause analysis and recall readiness, while digital checklist enforcement ensured SOP compliance before production could begin. The transformation reduced manual effort, improved reporting accuracy, accelerated response times, and created a more connected and disciplined manufacturing environment ready for future scaling.
