Brazzoli adopts digitalisation to improve quality and productivity

Located near Milan, Italy, and with 50 years of experience in the textile sector, Brazzoli is a leading manufacturer of dyeing machines. The company with its innovative product range and strong research and development focus has made major inroads in key global markets. In an exclusive chat, Senior Sales Director Andrea Pelissero discusses how the Italian machinery market has fared amidst the pandemic, the way Brazzoli has adopted a more digitised work environment and the company’s new product offerings to look forward to

Andrea Pelissero, Senior Sales Director, Brazzoli, and S B Ramesh Chandar, Lord’s Consultancies

Brazzoli was founded by Antonio Brazzoli in the early 1960s. Like most of the Italian textile machinery manufacturers, their founder family’s name was given to the company, which later became a well-known brand name in the global market. Speaking about Brazzoli’s experience in the overflow and jet sector for fabric dyeing, Senior Sales Director Andrea Pelissero states the company has got more than 50 years’ of experience and has always focused on the rope fabric dyeing market. According to him, “The Italian textile machinery industry suffered an average loss of 25 per cent in turnover last year compared to the previous year due to the pandemic.”

However, he is hopeful that the textile dyeing machinery market will pick up growth in Italy, despite the multiple waves of the pandemic. “The textile dyeing machinery market was obviously growing faster before the pandemic happened. Therefore, considering the period, we cannot complain honestly because there are so many sectors which are suffering much more than ours. Italy’s market is expected to grow very fast this year because the government has opened a new scheme that will provide a significant boost to all investors in industrial machinery production. Obviously, this is going to give a big stimulus to the market,” Pelissero says.

Sustainability Focus

When asked about Brazzoli’s market position at present, Pelissero states: “Not the first but not the second either! Jokes apart, we always like to be behind our best competitors so as to never stop improving.” He feels that customers are becoming increasingly sustainability-focused. Elaborating on the customer preferences, he points out: “Brazzoli has always been one step ahead in terms of water and energy savings. Due to this, and since customers have become more and more sensitive to this aspect, we are matching the world necessity to be more eco-friendly.”

Giving an overview of the company’s infrastructure, he informs: “We are a real Italian dyeing machinery manufacturer with 56 direct employees and we produce everything in our historic plant in Senago, Milan Province, Italy. We have got an installed capacity of 18 machines a month. Obviously, we do have sub-suppliers and vendors, mainly from Italy and from other European countries. We have very good partners and friends as sub-suppliers and vendors around us which permits us to be faster and more flexible.”

The new generation long tube dyeing machine with it’s patented features “Ecosynthetic”

He further adds that South America and Asia are the company’s major overseas markets and also states that the Italian domestic market looks very promising this year. Some of the leading apparel brands that use Brazzoli’s textile machinery include top names such as Calzedonia Intimissimi Group, Gabel, Stone Island, Yamamay, Gildan, Welspun, Robe di Kappa, Puma, Fila, La Coste, Nike and Adidas. This has all been possible due to the company’s mission to shape the future of a coloured world by creating unique value and opportunity for its customers, employees, investors and ecosystem partners. The company’s vision is to orient the world’s dyeing evolution to sustainable energy by providing advanced dyeing technology — for everyone, to anywhere.

Digitalisation Drive

The pandemic has seen companies adopting digitalisation in a major way. It has been no different in the case of Brazzoli. “We have implemented a completely new and automatic robot orbital welding station connected to our management system which allows us to improve the quality and increase productivity. Last but not the least, these days we have installed monitors in various production areas which help our expert workers to improve their skills because they get all the required information of the workflow and quality control online,” Pelissero informs.

The Way Ahead

With its keen attention to development of new products and technologies, Brazzoli has always been a step ahead of its competitors. For instance, it recently introduced a long tube dyeing machine branded Ecosynthetic and a laboratory dyeing machine named Eco-Lab. The company has exciting plans lined up for ITMA 2023 to be held in Milan. “We want to start manufacturing yarn dyeing and beam dyeing machines. To get ready by that time, we have just booked a new plant in front of our existing factory which will allow us to expand our production area,” Pelissero reveals.     

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A Growing India Presence

Brazzoli has had a long and successful association with India. In fact, the company started selling machines in India approximately 25 years ago. The Indian market’s significance for the company can be gauged from the fact that it contributes around 30 per cent of its annual turnover. The company plans to improve this figure to 45 per cent in the next 12 months. Lords Consultancies is the company’s agent for the Indian market. S B Ramesh Chandar, the owner of Lord’s Consultancies, is a humble, customer-oriented, hardworking professional. His relationship with the top management of Brazzoli dates back almost three decades and he shares a close relationship with them.

Lord’s Consultancies is headquartered in Coimbatore with branch offices and sales and service professionals located in Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Faridabad in New Delhi. Brazzoli also has an experienced Indian technician M Krishnamurthy, working directly for the company. He provides support to the company’s Indian customers. Additionally he also travels around Southeast Asian countries to provide fast, reliable and professional service to customers there as well. Some of the top Indian customers of the company include Welspun, Raj Export (Bhoomi Textile), Sky Textile (Sky Spintex), C R Garments (Sri Lakshmi), Aviram, Amarnath Dyeing, Four Star, etc.