No Stopping Brembo as Brake Maker Sets Up in Mexico

ESCOBEDO, Mexico – Italian brake-systems manufacturer Brembo takes another step along the road in its transformation from a small, limited maker of specialty components into a global powerhouse with the opening of a new plant here in northern Mexico.

The company also announces plans to build a foundry next door to the new factory just north of Monterrey.

Alberto Bombassei, Brembo president and son of the company's founder, says during the dedication of the $59 million, 377,000-sq.-ft. (35,000-sq.-m) plant, which will have more than 500 employees when fully operational, could generate $100 million in annual sales.

The new plant will concentrate on production of aluminum calipers for a variety of vehicles built in Mexico by U.S. and European automakers. “Our desire is to localize as much as possible,” says Daniel Sandberg, president and CEO of Brembo North America. The Escobedo plant will be capable of making 2 million calipers annually for delivery to customers in Mexico.

Brembo is negotiating to supply Asian automakers operating locally as well, plant manager Jose Miguel Leon Graffin says.

During a tour of the clean, bright factory, Brembo representatives call it one of the company’s most modern. It incorporates the latest technology for forming and finishing the stylized calipers that have become Brembo’s trademark over the years.

The manufacturing processes have been honed at Brembo plants in Europe, Asia and the U.S. and combine a high degree of efficiency with the latest technically integrated computerized systems and advanced training to the plant’s employees.

Over the past two decades, the appearance of wheels and brake systems, have come to play a more important aesthetic role in vehicle design. Starting with high-end sports cars from Porsche and Ferrari, Brembo steadily has built its business.

Brembo brakes with their rainbow of colored calipers and polished discs have become the equipment of choice on cars such as the Chevrolet Corvette and Camaro, Dodge Viper and Ford Mustang GT.

Italian Flair Migrates to Midsize Cars, Utes and Trucks

Sandberg says the stylized look of brakes and wheels is spreading from sports cars and luxury sedans to midsized vehicles, utility vehicles and even trucks.  “The truck guys are also attracted to great-looking wheels and brakes,” he says.

At the same time, OEs are placing more demands on brakes as they increase horsepower and overall performance of the vehicles they build.

As demand for its components expands, the multibillion-dollar supplier has been investing in the business. “We have spent $117 million on new plants and equipment in the past three (years),” Sandberg says.

Brembo plans to spend an additional $93 million to build an foundry next to the new caliper plant. The foundry will cover 269,000 sq.-ft. (25,000 sq.-m) of floor space, employ 200 workers and have capacity to produce 100,000 tons of cast-iron brake discs that will become part of Brembo braking systems.

Work on the new foundry will begin this fall and Brembo expects the new plant to go on line by the end of 2017.

The opening of the Escobedo manufacturing site represents a milestone for Brembo’s global operations. Following its strategy of localizing products and process innovation, service and cooperation close to its customers, the company wants to separate itself from competing suppliers, Sandberg says.

The launch of the new plant also expands Brembo’s presence in North America, where the company began operating in 1996 via a joint venture in Puebla, Mexico, and continued in 2007 with the acquisition of Hayes-Lemmerz’s brake-component operations in Michigan and in Apodaca, Mexico, located about 20 miles (32 km) from the Escobedo plant.

Brembo, founded in 1961 in a garage by Bombassei’s father, has become one of Italy’s best-known companies, says Italy’s Deputy Foreign Minister Benedetto Della Vedova, who was on hand for the dedication of the Escobedo plant.

The region around Monterrey in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon is in the center of the components industry that feeds the country’s growing auto industry. Authorities say about two-thirds of the parts-making plants in Mexico are based in and around Monterrey.

Sandberg notes the new Escobedo plant was built in less than a year, thanks to the expertise the company acquired from the construction of new production facilities on three continents.

The city of Escobedo, the state of Nuevo Leon and the government of Mexico have chipped in with the development of infrastructure around the plant and a commitment to help train the new workers who will staff the Brembo plant.

Nuevo Leon Gov. Jamie Rodriguez Caleron pledges his government will do whatever it can to assist Brembo or other companies locating in the region and says the government’s industrial policy is aimed at developing the “human capital” required not only to staff modern factories but to take on engineering and R&D.