Expert Talks with Edgardo Ferrero: why service should be designed in from the concept stage

Edgardo Ferrero's journey: from Mirafiori to service at Cimbali Group

Daniele: Good morning, everyone. I'm Daniele and this is Expert Talks, the Things5 podcast about technology and smart products with industry experts. Today we're joined by Edgardo Ferrero, Service and Quality Director with over 25 years of experience across the HoReCa and Automotive sectors, including companies like Stellantis and Cimbali Group. Hi Edgardo, how are you?

Edgardo: Hi Daniele, all good, thanks for inviting me.

Daniele: It's a pleasure to have you here. Your experience can offer different perspectives on developing service from a product standpoint. I'd like to dig into your journey: who is Edgardo, what has he done so far, and what experiences have shaped your career?

Edgardo: I spent 18 years in the Fiat Group, in Automotive, including working for a supplier of primary engine components, and then about ten years in the food equipment sector at Cimbali Group. Over these 25-28 years I've mainly held three roles.

After starting out in production at Mirafiori Meccanica, I spent about 10 years as an engine Program and Project Manager (engine development and maintaining the range in production, so cost reduction, quality improvement, and de-proliferation to benefit the plants). Then, for another 10 years, I was Quality Director at various companies, such as Fiat Group for industrial engines and Eldor (high-tech components). Finally, over the last decade at Cimbali, I also took on responsibility for Service. It was a journey that, across different areas of the business, let me see the company from different angles.

Daniele: You brought up the idea of different views of the company. I'd like to understand how your view of the company has changed, and of the concept of performance within the company, and of the aspects that mainly characterize the work of roles that are actually very, very different from one another.

Edgardo: Program Management and Quality usually revolve around the classic parameters of time, quality, and cost. Service, on the other hand, adds a different depth because it puts you in direct contact with customers. In this area you don't just see the delivery of a product with certain features and performance; you observe how it behaves throughout its entire lifecycle. That adds a different degree of complexity and new perspectives.

What Total Cost of Ownership is and how much it weighs in the buying decision

Daniele: On this point, when did you realize that the product isn't just the initial build phase, but has a life? What changed in the way you work after that realization?

Edgardo: The real shift happened at Cimbali. Even at Fiat or Eldor I knew the product reached the end customer, and quality data still came from the field, but there were many "layers" between us and the customer. Becoming both quality and service Director at Cimbali, I had a direct link to the end customer, both B2B (the one who sells the coffee machines) and the ultimate user. That made me realize that the immediate "deliverable" is no longer the only thing that matters; concepts like Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Customer Experience start to carry weight. These are aspects you need to take into account from the design and development phase: it's not just the delivery that counts, but above all everything that comes after.

Daniele: Can you explain the concept of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in more depth for our listeners?

Edgardo: If we think about Automotive, TCO includes the initial investment plus scheduled maintenance and any repairs of breakdowns. In the food equipment world, this is felt even more strongly. A coffee machine is a professional tool for doing business: if it breaks down, the café can't operate. The customer, unable to get a coffee, goes to another café and may never come back. For the barista, the real cost isn't just buying the machine, but the maintenance needed to ensure service continuity.

Daniele: How much does this weigh in a customer's buying decision?

Edgardo: In theory it should weigh a lot, but people often still stop at the initial investment. When a customer has a more mature view, though, they understand that the product is key to their business and look for a package that includes support and a scheduled maintenance plan. The big players in Food & Beverage or coffee roasters know these concepts well and always evaluate TCO.

From the factory to the customer: governance and communication between functions

Daniele: In your career you've held both operational and managerial roles. How has your way of thinking and seeing things been enriched over time?

Edgardo: Every experience added a piece. Moving from the plant (as a team leader at Mirafiori) to design was crucial. In the factory you ask yourself: "Why do designers set such tight tolerances?" Then you move into design and understand that they're needed to reduce the defects that reach the customer. However, designers often overlook the practical problems of production, such as how hard it is to hold those tolerances if a piece of machinery isn't properly maintained.

So moving into other areas lets you see things from other points of view, have a somewhat more holistic view. My move into program management, the cross-functional coordination of various functions to drive engine projects, gave me another perspective, because first in R&D as chief engineer and then as project manager, it really lets you see how all the company's functions contribute to a result. The move to Quality Director brought me back to a vertical focus on the quality goal, maximizing that result. Finally, the last move into service completed the journey, because service showed me the final point of view. In many contexts, service is the voice of the customer because it talks to them every day. It was truly a journey from production all the way to the end customer.

Daniele: From what you've told us, a strong theme of communication between departments and functions emerges. I'd like your view on how these aspects can be improved and how communication can be made simple and straightforward, so that I know why you made certain choices and you know why those choices don't always work for me.

Edgardo: There are several levels you can think about. The first is Program Management: it's the function that sits above the other functions and forces you to try to bring everyone toward the same result.

To do this, it's important to have governance, meaning rules on how functions interact with each other. There will be situations where, if I have to carry out a quality activity or a cost-reduction one, the two conflict. So there need to be rules on how we overcome that conflict: who decides, how decisions are made, what the company's primary objectives are. Governance also goes hand in hand with choosing the right metrics. And these are all aspects to take into account.

But you mentioned something else earlier: the fact that people need to know what they're doing and why they're doing it. That's a fundamental aspect. It's not just governance, it's communication. If a team knows where it needs to get to, that's the goal. There can be different paths, and governance helps you set the rules of the game, but at least we know we need to head in that direction. Certainly one of the biggest problems is when there's no clear vision of where you want to go.

Servitization: service doesn't come after the sale, it starts at the concept stage

Daniele: Vision is always central at the product level: it has to come from the top and be embraced by the whole team. I wanted to introduce a new topic: recently I read some of your posts and articles on LinkedIn and saw that you've been involved in events on servitization. I'd like you to explain to our listeners what servitization means to you and the role of field service within it.

Edgardo: Servitization is a change of mindset, a cultural change. It means moving from service understood as technical support - the people who repair the product when it breaks down or do preventive maintenance - to a concept we touched on at the beginning. If I sell a product, I'm not just selling the object here and now; I have to sell its lifecycle and the experience that comes with it. Then service changes perspective: it's no longer something that comes afterward, but something that's integrated into the sale of the product and its features. If you work backward, you understand that service isn't "after-sales," something that comes "after the sale," but something that has to be considered from the very beginning, already at the product concept stage. Just as you have targets for cost, performance, and features, you also need to bring the ability to service the machine upstream.

That's the concept of servitization: moving from something reactive, where you repair the product, to a strategic business lever and growth engine. In a competitive context where many products are copied and the initial price is the most important thing, by adding service to your package you lead the customer to evaluate the entire lifecycle, not just the moment of purchase.

What is Design for Serviceability? Designing with the repairer in mind

Daniele: There's always been this misunderstanding that the product was one thing and service something that comes afterward. What you're describing is a different approach that integrates the two to bring value to the end customer. This introduces the concept of "Design for Service," on which you're one of the leading experts in Italy. What are the most important current limitations of the design process that Design for Service addresses?

Edgardo: Bear in mind that different industries have different levels of maturity - in some, service is truly part of their DNA, and revenue is tied more to service than to product sales - but let's get back to serviceability.

The rules of serviceability are the ones designers make their own when they design the product. They don't design it just for aesthetics or for the performance it has to deliver, but with the idea that, if it should unfortunately break, or in the case of scheduled maintenance, whoever works on it can do so easily, without risking creating further problems because the operation is difficult or complex.

Everything revolves around the idea of thinking about who will work on that product. The upstream question is: "Am I designing with this need in mind as well?" We're back to the earlier point: you can't meet every need at the same time, and that's where the team has to find the best compromise for the goal that's been set. Hence the importance of a clear goal.

Design for Serviceability: a technical or a cultural issue?

Daniele: But is it more a technical or a cultural issue within a company?

Edgardo: It all starts with culture. Once that has become part of the company, it becomes a technical issue. If there's no understanding upstream, the technical side becomes just "homework" done any old way, often with disappointing results. If we're convinced this aspect should be treated as a company choice and part of the strategic vision, then you'll design governance, KPIs, and indicators. After that, yes, it becomes a technical problem: "How do I do it? How do I execute?"

Daniele: And how high is this on the priority list for people in Research and Development? To what extent is it considered, or are they required to do it?

Edgardo: As I mentioned, different industries have different levels of maturity and needs. Right now, the industrial sectors under attack from countries that manufacture at much lower costs have to raise a barrier to entry.

Years ago quality was a barrier, but now many countries manufacture with excellent quality. So if you want to stand out, understanding how to support your product's lifecycle has to become a strategic choice. Other sectors may still be behind because there's less competition or copying the product isn't worthwhile, so they wait and see.

Where to start: the Gemba and serviceability metrics

Daniele: If you had to start a "Design for Serviceability" project at a new company, what aspects should a manager in your role analyze to understand whether the current product lines are already ready or follow the right principles?

Edgardo: The simplest thing is what the Japanese call Gemba: going to the field. Talking to the people who service the machines and talking to customers to see which experiences in using the product are the least pleasant. Talking to technicians, you realize what the biggest difficulties are when they work on the product: "What bothers you? What isn't working?" That's where you get loads of ideas and understand whether your product is fine or needs improving, and with what priority.

Then there are classic metrics, but they depend on the type of product. Let me give you two examples. In a machine like a coffee machine, which is often placed against a wall, front access is ideal. If the technician has to replace a component and needs to access it from behind and move the machine, these are heavy machines; you need space, you need one or more people, and you have to move everything on the counter (glasses, syrups, etc.). So access from the front or from the top is ideal. With other huge machines, on the other hand, you don't have accessibility problems because you can walk around them, like packaging machinery.

Another thing is reducing the number of tools and wrenches needed. If you need a special tool that only that machine uses, and the technician forgets it, you create complexity. Finally, one of the most important things is cognitive ergonomics: how easy it is for a technician to figure out how to do an operation the right way. Like a traffic light: if it's green you know you can go, it's part of your culture; if it's red, you know you have to stop. Reaching the top level means I don't have to explain things to you; you, being a technician, can "read" the machine. Then there are diagnostic aids, telemetry, and remote control. Every product has its own characteristics, many of which can overlap across different industries, but then there are some specifics you need to know.

How to build serviceability into product development gates

Daniele: If you had to describe the design process, is the technician involved too? What are the steps to follow?

Edgardo: Let's assume the ideal case where "design for serviceability" is one of the project's requirements, along with design to cost, design for quality, design for performance, and design for manufacturing. All of these requirements should be brought into the design phase.

In a positive scenario, you include deliverables and measurable parameters in the various control gates of product development. On "day zero," when you start with the concept, in addition to saying "I want the machine to deliver this result, last 10 years, and cost this much," you also need to set a serviceability target. For example, you can establish that the Total Cost of Ownership of scheduled and preventive maintenance over the lifecycle must be below a certain amount.

Daniele: So it's more about defining the goals to reach than about the design process.

Edgardo: Exactly, there are two issues. One: you need clear goals in order to build measurement metrics. The metrics can be economic or technical. Maybe you don't set an economic target because the hourly rate varies, but you set a time target for disassembly, reassembly, or performing a certain maintenance task. That will then translate into economic terms depending on where you are and the cost of labor, or how the cost of components evolves.

The requirements of a maintainable product according to Edgardo Ferrero

Daniele: If you had to list the elements and standards that make a product maintainable, what would your "top 5" be?

Edgardo: Thinking about the products I've worked with, I'd say:

• Accessibility.

• Simplicity, meaning the cognitive ergonomics I was talking about.

• Tools: as few as possible and preferably not specific or custom. Diagnostic capability: how I diagnose a problem, what alarms I have, and how intuitive and clear the messages are. Let me give an example with medical parameters: you see the asterisk on your blood test results and panic, but the doctor tells you it's nothing serious. The technician is a bit like the doctor: they have to put the pieces together. The easier those pieces are to put together, or the more self-evident they are, the less I need a specialist, and a regular technician can be effective.

• Diagnostic capability.

• Troubleshooting definitely becomes important, and this is where new technologies come in (remote control, remote diagnostics). The goal isn't just to make the technician's life easier, but to provide a product that meets the customer's wishes by solving problems quickly to maximize uptime.

Daniele: Very clear and interesting. Can you think of a success story from your career where applying these rules had a big impact?

Edgardo: There are many. If you take previous products that weren't designed with these concepts and compare them with the new ones, the impact is obvious. A simple example: on traditional coffee machines, the barista uses a portafilter that wears down a gasket it presses against when you lock it in. Replacing this gasket is a routine maintenance task, like an oil change on a car.

On the new machines, the time to replace the gasket has been drastically reduced. Before, you had to unscrew several parts to get to the gasket; now the operation is very quick. Imagine a customer like Autogrill that has machines with four coffee groups: if you reduce the time of each service call and multiply it across all the machines, the savings are enormous. These are cost savings that can be used to increase margins or to improve the customer experience.

The most common mistake: not involving field service technicians

Daniele: What are the two or three mistakes you've seen made most often with this approach?

Edgardo: If we assume the mindset is the right one and everyone is convinced of the importance of the topic, the biggest mistake is not involving technicians to understand their points of view. People often run customer surveys, but here you have an internal customer - the technician - who helps you satisfy the external customer. Field service is the heart of the department because it's in contact with the customer every day. Technicians understand not only the technical problems, but also the customer's needs, because they hear lots of different points of view. Field service is a huge source of insight for the company, and it's free because they're your own people. Talking to technicians is the activity that delivers the most value.

Daniele: And what tools are best suited to make this communication work between field service, management, and the people in charge of design?

Edgardo: You need a methodology and governance that clearly indicate what information is useful for quality, for production or design, and for product marketing. You need to define a method that's consistent with the product.

As I mentioned earlier with disassembling the machine to replace the gasket, you need to split operations into two categories: the operations you do often, like changing a gasket, have to be lightning fast. If, on the other hand, the boiler in the coffee machine springs a leak, and the boiler is its beating heart, the job can take longer because it's a very rare event. You need to focus on what really matters and accept complexity only where it's unavoidable. In those cases, you'll find different solutions, like the courtesy car body shops provide when they have to carry out a longer repair on your car.

Daniele: It reminds me of Steve Jobs's design principles, like the concept of less is more. But how do you keep maintenance technicians, who may be external partners, engaged in passing along this information?

Edgardo: This is my point of view: something that, in my experience, always creates a lot of engagement is communicating, involving people. It takes time; even if the technicians aren't in-house, they need to be involved in understanding what's useful. If they see that projects make their lives easier and that they can contribute to this improvement, then they feel part of the process. New technologies make communication easier. Everyone uses tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Gemini because they engage the user much more, since you can have a conversation. Using these tools for data collection too, making the task simple, helps enormously. In the past, filling out paper checklists killed technicians' motivation, and they ended up entering the wrong information just to "get the paperwork done." If technology makes the bureaucratic side easier and helps technicians in their work, they're more willing to cooperate.

Generative AI supporting technicians: why adoption must be shared

Daniele: I'll pick up on that, because in the past we've also worked with you on some very advanced projects using generative AI, and I know how much you believe in these new technologies. I know you've also worked on projects involving virtual and augmented reality. What's your view on technology, and how has it changed over the course of your career?

Edgardo: Technologies let you do many things, but they have to be used correctly. When I started out, I was one of the few people who knew how to use Excel, and that let me line up the data and spot patterns others couldn't see. Now technology makes everything simpler: collecting and analyzing data is immediate if the tool is properly trained.

My starting point is that every new thing should be explored and understood. Maybe at first you see small potential, but things change fast. You have to be careful not to bite off more than you can chew by investing in something new just because it's new, without assessing the added value. But it's essential to stay "on board" and not fall behind, because someone else will use those technologies instead of you. You need to sift through what the world has to offer and share the approach within the company to understand which direction to take.

With you, we developed an initiative using artificial intelligence to support technicians. We went in phases, expanding the scope and taking on suggestions from the people who came on board. The more people are involved, the more it becomes a collective intelligence.

Daniele: Recent studies confirm that AI projects only work if they cut across the company; those limited to a single department rarely have a future, precisely because they weren't designed to be pervasive within the company.

Edgardo: That's the story of every technology, as happened with CRM ten years ago. People thought CRM would solve all customer relationship problems. Then we saw massive flops and massive investments, because when it came to adoption and engagement, only the top-down idea had come through, and there hadn't been any validation, any buy-in.

Augmented reality in service: remote assistance and training with cards

Daniele: You talked about a technology that salespeople saw as something imposed on them. Over time it became clear that it allowed you to have somewhat more detailed, deeper relationships with customers, to avoid mistakes, to avoid making choices not based on data. But getting back to your projects specifically, I know you also worked a lot on augmented and virtual reality. What did you do?

Edgardo: Augmented reality found application in two different cases. The first is a service classic: video calls where an expert at headquarters supports a technician in the field. If the technician out there is less experienced, verbal instructions aren't enough.

With augmented reality, from headquarters I can see what they see, freeze the image, rewind the recording, and put an arrow on the screen that they see in real time. A picture is worth a thousand words. I can also instantly send them a specific video for the disassembly. This approach already exists in many industries. I've always been cautious about augmented reality glasses: in some industries they're useful, in others they're redundant. You have to fit the technology to what's needed.

The second application concerns engagement and training. Today augmented reality costs very little compared to twenty years ago. I remember more than 20 years ago when I saw it at Fiat, it was very expensive and was only used for marketing. Now you hire a young recent graduate, you already have the 3D models from design, you can do anything and everything with augmented reality, and it costs very little.

At Cimbali, for example, we created a deck of cards for technicians: there were no kings or queens, but the components of the machine. When you pointed an app at the cards, technical content or 3D models you could cut into sections would appear. It's a fun and engaging way to do training, especially when you can't physically be at headquarters with the machines taken apart.

How to launch an AI or Design for Serviceability project

Daniele: It's a very interesting approach, truly a different approach to training. We know that, especially with younger generations, it's an important topic because there's a shorter long-term attention span.

If, on the other hand, you had to define a minimum set of information and data to get started with an augmented reality or AI project, what would it be?

Edgardo: The starting point is always: where do you want to get to? If the goal isn't crystal clear, everything you do upstream could take you somewhere else. Maybe the idea changes along the way because you learn new things, but you have to start with a clear direction. Only then do you start designing a path and understand whether you need more data, certain metrics, or specific skills, and whether these should be internal or external.

Daniele: How much can this vision change over time? Does it need to be 90% clear, or can it evolve continuously?

Edgardo: In my view, it can change continuously. If the underlying goal (like increasing revenue) stays the same, the ways of getting there can evolve. If everything changes radically all the time, then that's a problem. A certain rate of change is natural and normal; never changing your mind would be foolish, but you need the right balance.

Daniele: What are the two main things you'd advise a CEO who wants to start a project that includes the principles of "Design for Serviceability"? What do you see as the key points?

Edgardo: The first point is involving people, their "front line." It's a key enabler for being able to move into execution successfully: if the CEO conveys the vision to their team, accepting objections and finding compromises, the team will do the same with the rest of the company.

The second point is designing the path: assessing what resources are needed, whether they're internal or external, and building a clear roadmap with the various steps. So: sharing, and designing the path.

Agentic AI and modular products: field service trends

Daniele: So there are two themes: sharing and designing the path. What trends do you see emerging in field service and servitization in the coming years?

Edgardo: Definitely agentic AI: artificial intelligences that in some way decide, complete tasks, and act on their own. It's a trend that's not too far off, even in less developed industrial fields.

Another critical aspect is the difficulty of finding trained technicians. Long-standing expertise is being lost, and it's hard to find young people willing to pursue a career path in service. This will lead to a complete rethink of the product. If I have a widely distributed product, I need lots of technicians across the territory. If I have a product made of modules, I can send a technician with basic skills to replace the module, and then repair the part at highly specialized centers. This will certainly create logistics problems, but I'll need fewer trained technicians. It also solves the problem of turnover and the shortage of technicians, not just skilled ones, but even basic technicians. So AI will help with troubleshooting, but we'll also need to work on simplifying the product.

Daniele: And how do the skills of a Service Director change with these technologies?

Edgardo: I'll give you a provocative answer: they don't change. "Hard" skills will change because there's always something new to learn, but "soft" skills remain the same. A service director needs curiosity, a desire to understand, and a desire to learn. Whether it's generative AI or agentic AI, curiosity didn't change twenty years ago and it doesn't change now.

Edgardo Ferrero's advice and the book that inspired Design for Serviceability

Daniele: One last question: looking back on your 25 years of experience, what three pieces of advice would you give the young Edgardo of back then, and what book would you recommend?

Edgardo: The three pieces of advice are:

• Stay curious about learning and seeing alternative ways of doing things.

• Talk to people a lot: not just at the coffee machine, but to genuinely understand what they need. It's collective intelligence that lets you get results.

• Have discipline and method. Sports champions are great athletes thanks to the discipline they applied to achieve those results.

As for books, I could give you a whole list, but the one that opened up new perspectives on service for me is a bit old: La caffettiera del masochista by Donald Norman. In English it's The Design of Everyday Things.

Norman is a cornerstone of user experience and the usability of objects. He explains how a well-designed product should have intuitive usability. Let me give you an example: if you go into a beautiful restaurant bathroom and can't figure out how to get the water running, you're not the one who's stupid; it's the designer who favored aesthetics at the expense of usability. Sometimes you find a button you press with your foot, other times it's a photocell issue.

That book was the spark that gave rise to my "Design for Serviceability" project. It's a book from many years ago, but its principles are still extremely valid.

Daniele: Edgardo, thank you so much for this conversation full of information and interesting insights. Thanks a lot, and we hope to have you back soon for another episode. In the meantime, a warm goodbye to all our listeners; see you on the next episode of Expert Talks. Thank you.

Edgardo: Thank you.