Brasterápica cut lead time by 47% with Cogtive’s platform
Brasterápica has 50 years of history in the pharmaceutical industry, spanning Over-the-Counter (OTC) medicines, Pharma, Herbal Medicines, Dietary Supplements, Hospital products, and Generics. Its footprint is nationwide, with a strong presence in Brazil’s North and Northeast regions — more than 16 brands across 74 SKUs.
The company’s plant is located in Atibaia, in the interior of São Paulo state. Production volume today runs around 2.5 million units, with a focus on high-capacity multi-pack tablet packaging.
Five decades of operating in the domestic market gave the company valuable experience manufacturing medicines with quality and efficiency. Today, it is positioned to expand operations and offer an increasingly diversified product lineup.
The challenge
Before Cogtive, management relied on spreadsheets, which meant the production team had to be constantly on the shop floor to collect data. That created a significant lag in updating information. Key metrics, such as OEE, were only available the next day, or later.
In manufacturing, response time is decisive for building faster action plans and keeping plant delivery on track. Brasterápica couldn’t afford to wait that long for information, especially when production volume ran above normal.
Rolling out Cogtive
One of Cogtive’s biggest advantages was how easy it was to deploy. All it took was an internet connection on the shop floor to install the equipment and start collecting data. Within a short time, the system was updated with what was happening on the equipment in real time.
The technology was already known to one of the managers from previous experience, and when he encountered Brasterápica’s challenges, he recognized Cogtive as the ideal solution. Customer service and support were also key factors in ensuring a smooth rollout and reliable operation over time.
Today, around 16 machines have their data collected by Cogtive’s system, feeding the OEE and Flow View features.
Flow View: view of Brasterápica’s production flow in Cogtive
Data-driven decision-making
Every day, Gemba walks are held to discuss results based on the data Cogtive collects. These meetings are aimed at driving continuous improvement across the plant’s processes. With real-time data on hand, decision-making is faster and more accurate.
In these daily meetings, the team identified that a lot of time was being lost to setups and operational adjustments — something that wasn’t visible before Cogtive. In the challenging growth context the company was facing, Cogtive delivered visibility into the operation, helping identify opportunities and keep up with rising demand.
Screenshot of Cogtive’s Equipment Dashboard (Actual OEE, Pareto, FIFO, Status, OEE History, Maintenance, Speed, Setup)
Scaling up production with Cogtive
Cogtive profoundly changed the day-to-day routine inside Brasterápica’s plant. From management down to the shop floor, the company adopted a leaner approach that cut waste and boosted profitability end to end. It became possible to implement pull production, running 60% of the plant based on actual demand.
André Miler, Industrial Director at Brasterápica
“With Cogtive, we’ve been able to speed up delivery. That lets us be more agile and responsive, serving demand better.”
— André Miler, Industrial Director
Cogtive arrived at Brasterápica at a moment when the plant’s capacity was expanding and operations were doubling. The technology was key to absorbing that exponential growth in demand without losing production and delivery quality.
Results
Brasterápica gained the flexibility it needed through real-time data collection for faster management. Lead time, which used to run 12 to 15 days at the plant, has now been cut to 8 days.
“With Cogtive, we’ve been able to implement more efficient inventory management. That gave us tighter control over stock and material flow, thanks to a reduced lead time.”
— André Miler, Industrial Director
Greater efficiency through a standardized operation
With the detailed visibility Cogtive provides into every stage of production, management can involve the whole team in decision-making. Getting more teams engaged in the results built a culture of continuous improvement, resulting in a more efficient, high-performing plant.
With the plant visible in a digital version through the kanban, it became clear that certain tasks were taking longer than necessary. Management could measure exactly what was happening at each piece of equipment, such as setup and maintenance.
They noticed that each operator worked in a different way, creating bottlenecks in the processes that, over time, generate significant losses. Production stages were standardized so everyone would work the same way and within the same timeframe.
All the gains are tracked in the system, giving the whole team a clear understanding of what’s happening. Because it’s an easy tool to use, 100% of Brasterápica’s teams use Cogtive.
COGTIVE
Cogtive is a SaaS (Software as a Service) company expanding productivity potential in the manufacturing industry, revealing the hidden capacity on the production line, changing the way leadership sees the shop floor, increasing production efficiency, and impacting business results. Built on IoT and Artificial Intelligence, our software enables a drastic reduction in line stoppages, improves productivity rates, optimizes the time of operators and managers, and lets factories reach peak performance.
