The Field Engineer

The Field Engineer

The Field Engineer podcast is for all engineers who work in field based engineering and customer service and support. Our mission is to provide a home and community for everyone in field-based engineering, wherever you are, and whatever industry or sector you work in. We welcome Field Service Engineers, Field Process Engineers, Field Applications Engineers, Field Sales Engineers, Field technicians, Biomedical and Medical field service, and anyone who has an interest in supporting the Field Engineering community. A community where you can find support and solutions to your urgent questions.

  1. Oct 7

    Putting People First in Field Service A Conversation with Arnaud Billard

    Putting People First in Field Service A Conversation with Arnaud Billard is our first interview in French. Our French title is 'Placer l'humain au cœur du service sur le terrain, une conversation avec Arnaud Billard'. With over 17 years leading large-scale service organizations across Europe and EMEA, Arnaud Billard specializes in service transformation, customer experience (CX) and the design of operating models that turn service functions into genuine value creators.His career spans medical devices, diagnostics, pharmaceutical and broader life sciences with roots in the automotive sector where he built his foundation in operational excellence and lean methodologies. Rigorous process discipline in service of human outcomes not as an end in itself.Arnaud has led post-acquisition integrations, digitalization programmes, field service optimization and the evolution of multicultural service organizations across Europe, with P/L accountability and a focus on sustainable growth.One conviction has sharpened over time: how people feel, customer, patients, frontline teams, directly shapes business outcomes: patient experience, listening and psychological safety are performance levers. Attention, presence and trust within a team are among the most underestimated drivers of operational excellence and resilience. This is not peripheral to leadership, it is central to it.Arnaud explores these dimensions at the intersection of healthcare, wellbeing and leadership effectiveness across generations: professionals feeling overwhelmed, children with fragmented attention and elderly people losing connection.What he has built and led:- Service strategy & operating model design, Europe and EMEA- CX and patient experience transformation- Post-merger integration and change management- P/L management, growth and scaling service organizations- Human-centred leadership and psychological safetyHis leadership style is grounded in clarity, empathy and rigour. Sustainable excellence emerges when people are supported, trusted and heard, not only measured.Outside of work: philosophy, pastels, classical flute, rollerblading, snowboarding.Excellence through balance, the right movement at the right moment.Keywords: Service Leadership / Medical Devices / Diagnostics / Life Sciences / Pharmaceutical / EMEA / Europe / CX / Patient Experience / Service Transformation / Operating Model / Operational Excellence / P/L / Post-Acquisition Integration / Change Management / Digitalization / Field Service / Scaling Up / Human-Centred Leadership / Psychological Safety / Professional Resilience.

  2. Oct 5

    Resilient Networks - Redesigning Global Supply Chains for Field Service Excellence

    Supply Chain Management is critical for field serviceengineers. Global politics, trade wars, real wars, and conflicts, allimpact the ability of service and installation operations to function successfully.  We recently interviewed Matthew GuyGallardo who is a Global Spare Parts Planner at CooperSurgical on The Field EngineerPodcast.   In 2024 Charlie Apps interviewed RosemaryCoates for The Field Engineer Podcast to discuss global supply chains, SCM, reshoring, and the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. Two years on global supply chains are being challenged even more than they were in 2024. So, The Field Engineer asked Rosemary Coates to meet with us again and share her insights on the current state of the Global Supply Chain for field services, installations, and after-market management. Caroline Gregory of The Field Engineer speaks to Rosemary Coates about Global Supply Chains and Field Service Excellence. Rosemary Coates has an MBA and started her career in logistics for HP. She then built an extensive career in global supply chain. Rosemary is an author and has written books about manufacturing, including 42 rules for superior field service. She is an experienced speaker and serves as an expert witness globally. Rosemary was named as one of the hundred most influential women in Silicon Valley in 2024. Reshoring Institute. In 2014 we started the Reshoring Institute which is a research institute but we also help companies think through their global manufacturing strategy and help them determine if they can can re-establish any kind of manufacturing in the US or to rethink their global strategy. And that's really important these days because of the geopolitics. So you have to I mean companies have to be nimble and able to sort of turn on a dime when there's some geopolitical situation that forces them to make different sourcing decisions and you know different operational decisions. The importance of field service I always start with the context that field service doesn't get enough attention in most organizations. you know it can be a fairly significant amount of revenue that's generated through field service and yet the field service organizations do not normally report into the very senior levels in an organization. They're usually a level or two down and and even though they're representing not only a significant revenue stream but they're really the voice of the customer. I mean the field service people are out there talking to customers every day and we should be listening to what they're saying, what feedback they're getting and so forth that would help drive you know the product development marketing you know there's all sorts of parts of the organization that would benefit from the information that’s gathered through field service. So I always start with that context that field service is really important to most organizations and is not getting enough attention and we need to drive the awareness of field service organizations to a more senior level.So the field service engineers are speaking directly to the people who are feeling the pain I suppose.Seniority of Supply Chain within an organisationAlso you know what we're seeing now is a lot of reorganization creating and elevating supply chain management to more senior levels in organizations so it's no longer just a back office function a lot of a lot of promotion I mean today it's not unusual to see chief supply chain officers that are sitting in the C Suite and run an organization from a supply chain perspective.

  3. Sep 22

    Stop Guessing What Your Field Service Customers Value

    The Field Engineer meets Lisa Hellqvist the Managing Director of Copperberg and a member of The Field Engineer community. Copperberg create business platforms bringing together the manufacturing community in order to grow and build relationships globally. Lisa discusses the future of field service engineering with Caroline Gregory of The Field Engineer. Women in Field Service Engineering We're constantly hearing from field service leaders that they would like more women in their team. I know that you think that making the workplace more attractive could be part of the solution as it would attract more people overall to field service engineering. So, how can companies do this? What's your advice Lisa? That is of course the million-dollar question and if I have the true answer, I will bottle it and sell it very expensively. But on the other hand, it is to me and you're saying something there that I really believe is true is that we say and I actually like that you asked if we want more women sometimes they even bump into the expression need which I think is who needs more women and why that's even another part of the discussion. But when we say want it's a terminology thing as well where I think okay but what can we do to make them want to choose us right or you know we have to ask ourselves that question but the question essentially is a broader question because if we don't have women applying for the job but we also see we have too few candidates overall applying for the job as a field service technician or an engineer. It either starts with the educational system not actually you know having enough people graduating with the right type of titles or we are not attractive enough as employers and then we have to ask ourselves okay what are we communicating when we're going into these recruitment processes'. Copperberg recently published a white paper on the topic, 'Service at the core'.https://www.copperberg.com/white-paper-service-at-the-core/

About

The Field Engineer podcast is for all engineers who work in field based engineering and customer service and support. Our mission is to provide a home and community for everyone in field-based engineering, wherever you are, and whatever industry or sector you work in. We welcome Field Service Engineers, Field Process Engineers, Field Applications Engineers, Field Sales Engineers, Field technicians, Biomedical and Medical field service, and anyone who has an interest in supporting the Field Engineering community. A community where you can find support and solutions to your urgent questions.

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