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Gianluca Dolci, after-sales service manager, has been with Imaforni since 1990. Previously, he had worked at Alivar, a food-industry company in the SME group, the owner of such brands as Motta, Pavesi and Alemagna.
With a degree in mechanical and plant engineering, he takes every opportunity he can in his free time to practice scuba diving, a sport in which he has also obtained a license as an instructor.
He has an eight-year-old daughter who always asks him at breakfast if it was he who made the biscuits or snacks she is eating. Just an excuse to hear again “how they make the drawings on the biscuits” or “how they put the cream inside the cakes.”
For technician-daddy it’s a magic moment prior to the long and demanding day ahead: he has the task of supervising the installation of new plants in countries the world over (with the inevitable incidents that often crop up however meticulously the schedule has been planned) and following after-sales service in all its many aspects.
Gianluca Dolci coordinates the highly experienced and qualified team of 17 engineering experts in the Ima Service team, many of whom he himself has selected over the years. They are assisted by four external mechanics and commissioning engineers, and a dozen or so electricians who do the on-site wiring installations.
“My main job is to coordinate the various phases of the work on site,” explains Mr. Dolci, “but over the years I’ve also acquired a sort of troubleshooting mentality, and this helps me keep under control the anxiety that comes naturally in this job, while responding almost automatically to the problems in hand.” Getting the timing right in this sector is essential, and Mr. Dolci has to deal on average with a dozen sites operating at any given time in a whole range of different countries. He has to make sure that the materials reach the site as and when required, often having to take into account long deliveries by sea and Customs clearance that are different in every country, as well as scheduling the arrival of the various experts whose task is to carryout the various installation and commissioning procedures. Then there are logistic and installation problems that depend on local resources. In some cases, for example, it is hard to find suitable lifting equipment, and alternatives need to be found locally. Sometimes one has to work with completely inappropriate equipment. To say nothing of
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the problems caused by having to get visas for the various countries on time – something that is taking longer and longer, and becoming more and more complex every year.
“Our strength is that we work as a team – an outstanding team” replies Gianluca Dolci, “Imaforni can count on extremely skilled technicians both inside and outside the company – professionals who have been working for the company for many years. Staff turnover here is no more than physiological. When we manage to find the right people, we certainly don’t want them to leave us. Our team has built up an enormous amount of experience. And this is of great value to the company – something that others truly envy us. The secret lies in the fact that the right people have been chosen for the right job.” And this is also true for the after-sales service: “When customers phone in, they know who to talk to, since their contacts have remained the same for many years. And that really makes a difference,” says Mr. Dolci. “Having the right person to talk to in order to solve the problems in hand is an enormous advantage for a customer who can’t even contemplate stopping production, and who needs an immediate answer.” It must be said that the experience he built up in the technical department at Alivar has enabled, this after-sales service manager today, to understand exactly what a customer expects from a supplier. “Having worked ‘on the other side’, I know all aboutthe needs of a company with a number of production lines, working round the clock on three shifts a day.”
Last year Imaforni started work on about 70 sites all over the world, carrying out 90 technical assistance operations, many of them for preventive maintenance, using up more than 200 airline tickets.
“Over the past 15 years, I’ve seen Imaforni growing exponentially, and it’s always been a pleasure for me to work in an environment that takes into account expertise, respecting it and treasuring it.” Dolci concludes: “The company had the right intuition when it anticipated market demand at the international level while maintaining high product and personnel standards, while never losing the style of a crafts company where people have a name, and are not just a number, and where they like to stay.
Many engineering companies today are in difficulty, not because they don’t have a good product, but because they have real difficulty finding the right people to work on the construction sites: there are companies that sell plants but are then not able to provide the customer with the right quality of installation, start-up and maintenance.”
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