2 maggio 2017

Forty years Brachi

On the road from 1977: side by side with companies, in the name of quality

by Primo Brachi

There are things that deserve to be remembered, without pomposity but with due respect to a story that means so much and not just for me.

The year was 1977. I’ve been working for some time at the Studio Tecnico Brachi, which was offering - and still offers - technical insurance services for industry. After graduating at the historic Buzzi Institute of Prato, moving my first steps in the family business seemed like a natural choice. Natural was also my passion for the tests and technical checks related to the assessments we were asked to perform. To this end, the Studio was equipped with some machines that, together with others purchased later, became property of the rising Laboratorio di Analisi, Prove e Ricerche Tessili. Ditta individuale di Brachi Primo.

It has been forty years since then, slightly less from the first accreditation by Mark & Spencer in 1981, which marked a major leap in quality for the lab and its growth ambitions.
If I look back at that time, the context today seems almost unrecognizable. Most of analysis were aimed at testing fabrics and garments from a performance point of view: pilling resistance, traction resistance, color solidity, dimensional variations... Detection of chemicals potentially harmfoul for the consumers' health and the environment begins spreading later and it is accompanied by the adoption by the most far-sighted brands of voluntary labels such as OEKO-TEX or ECOLABEL.

We ourselves have preferred not to wait for the long times of the law, rather listening to the market. In the early 1990s, a new instrumental chemistry division carried out complex analyzes to quantify the presence of aromatic amines as well as pesticides and other groups of dangerous substances. This activity has grown steadily over time, becoming almost prevalent.
Our approach, yesterday and today, is to anticipate the businesses’ needs by investing in state-of-the-art equipment designed to perform not only the most widespread tests but also those referring to specific regulations in force only in some countries.

Customization of services is another distinctive value of Brachi, namely the idea of always guaranteeing to customers - wherever they sell their products, wherever they have their productions - the same quality standards they are used to in Italy: modular solutions, fast delivery times, thorough knowledge of different standards and markets.

Hence the decision to open first in China and then in Bangladesh two labs that reflect in all and all, even in accreditations, the philosophy that led us to be what we are today. In India, Pakistan and, soon, in Vietnam, we have made a different choice, which consists of strategic partnerships with laboratories of proven experience and solidity. Logic, however, remains unchanged.

1977-2017. We were a few, today we are more than 100 all over the world. Since 2008 the company's official name is Brachi Testing Services, although many know us simply as Brachi lab. We are proud of this familiarity built in forty years of work not always easy but beautiful.
In front of us there is a future of new challenges and opportunities. We're ready to seize them with realism and no fear, because as we wrote in codifying our values «we are proud of what we are, but it is not enough».

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