Area Service Manager, Brazil
Service Station, Joinville, Brazil
14 years
“I'm Renato and I’m from the greater São Paulo area, more specifically the city of Santo André, with a population of 700,000. My father is a maintenance mechanic, while my mother raised the children and takes care of the house. I’ve currently been married to my wife, Natalia, for 16 years and we have two daughters, 11-year-old Alicia and 6-year-old Sophia.
In the past, I worked at Tupahue Tintas, now known as Siegwerk, which manufactures inks for flexography and rotogravure, using Bühler equipment.
It was in this context that I had my first contact with the Bühler brand and began to admire its products and interact with the Customer Service department. This experience led me to establish a friendship with Maciel Carvalho, the Service Technician at the time. I told him about my previous experience as a service technician at another company and my knowledge of extruders and other equipment.
On one of these visits, Maciel told me about a vacancy for a Service Engineer at Bühler and put my name forward for the position. Bühler’s Human Resources department contacted me, inviting me to an interview in Joinville. I was impressed by the company’s structure and, after a technical interview with Sales Manager Milton Davila, I got the job. After a bit of back and forth, I started my position at Bühler.
When I started at Bühler in 2011, I met Damien Chapelier (Customer Service Director) at the airport on my way to Joinville, and later the entire 18-strong Customer Service Brazil team. On the second day, I was already carrying out technical assistance at BASF (European multinational company and the largest chemical producer in the world), and in the following days I continued with other technical activities, thus beginning my career in technical assistance, commissioning, and assembly supervision in various segments intensely. During this period, I had the opportunity to meet many people who helped me understand the Bühler universe.
In 2011, I provided technical assistance in the installation and commissioning of an extrusion line for Antiga (Cognis) after it became BASF. I worked at this plant for over 6 months and then provided some assistance. BASF decided to close this plant after 2 years. After about 5 years, I was asked by BASF to sell the entire plant and ensure that the entire physical space was clean. I asked for 3 months to offer the line to some customers. I first offered it to Grupo Coringa in Arapiraca City.
They visited the BASF plant and got to know it and agreed to purchase the line and install it in Arapiraca – adapted to their corn flour process. In this process, I helped to mediate between Coringa, the Bühler Engineering team and us from Customer Service. One of the agreements with Coringa was for me to participate in the commissioning of the line, and that is what I did. One challenge was that there was Bühler equipment, third-party equipment, a Bühler automation system, and an extruder upgrade.
After 15 days of commissioning, Carlos Danielle (Technologist), Carlos Castro (ASM Northeast Brazil), Adriano Sotratto (Electrical Service Engineer) and Daniel Stein (Automation Engineer) completed the work with the support of the client and delivered the project with new and used machines, with total client satisfaction.
This project was one of the most challenging in my career and, without a doubt, satisfactory, because I was involved from start to finish.
In 2013, I received the news that I was going to be a father and, in agreement with Natalia, I decided to reduce my long journeys to spend more time at home. After talking to Damien Chapelier, I changed roles and there was a position for a third salesperson, so I moved from technical execution to Customer Service sales. When I took on this new position, there was a change in structure, and I was invited to take on the position of Area Service Manager for the South America region. During these years, I received support and guidance from many mentors, such as Frederico Goulart, Tadeu Baamonde, Fabricio Aquino, Jorge Botero, Maciel Carvalho, Leandro Laia and Milton Dávila.
”The constant technological evolution at Bühler is remarkable, which requires us to always be up-to-date and attentive to market trends, as well as internal solutions.”
One of the biggest challenges was during the pandemic, when we had to adapt customer support to a remote format. As a Customer Service professional, I face daily challenges, but I also experience many success stories that make me reflect on the positive impact we can have on the lives of families, companies and people on a daily basis.
The constant technological evolution at Bühler is remarkable, which requires us to always be up-to-date and attentive to market trends, as well as internal solutions. The acquisition of the Haas Group was a major change that broadened our understanding of technology and its importance to our customers.
Bühler is a passionate company, and I want to stay with it until I retire. Here, I realize that we have a strong relationship with customers and an internal environment that makes us feel like friends. I also notice that the market is constantly renewing itself, with competitors becoming more aggressive. We can improve by listening more to our customers, being more flexible in the development of our solutions and acting more quickly in our responses.
I would like to get to know Bühler’s operations in India and Japan better, and I am open to working in any department within the company, and if I had the chance, I’d love to have a coffee with someone from the Bühler family, as I find them very inspiring.”
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