Jovica Vidovic: GM at Total Group Consulting (Serbia)

Jovica Vidovic is the General Manager at Total Group Consulting which is based out of Serbia with an office in Egypt focusing on Italian machinery from parts and service to maintenance, rebuilds and CNC equipment.

You can contact Jovica at www.totalgroup.rs

Total Group Consulting is focused mainly on Italian machinery (CNC routers, parts and accessories) and I was wondering why you choose Italian over Russian, American, Chinese or even well known German machinery for distribution?

I chose Biesse (one of the most famous producer of CNC machines for wood in the world) by accident 18 years ago when I entered in this sector.

You have a very nice range of CMT tooling – what makes their tools unique in the industry and how do they compare to tools from other companies in both North America and Germany or Austria?

CMT is one of the oldest and most famous tool producer from Italy for tools for carpenters. They have perfect relation between price and quality.

Being both a distributor and consulting firm selling new and used machinery – what are some things machine owners can do to make sure their machines run well for the longest possible time? How do you make sure you get the best resale value out of your equipment?

Proper use, preventive mainenance and good operator are guaranty that your machine will work long time and good.

You’ve traveled extensively helping customers with their Biesse equipment, from the Middle East to Europe, Africa to Asia – have you noticed any cultural differences in how this equipment is handled or how open a shop owner can be towards repairing old equipment vs buying new? How does the owner know he’s getting the best possible deal with both the equipment and necessary servicing?

Yes, me and my team of technicians for this past 15 year traveled to around 50 countries around the world . We saw everything during this past time. Even you have new or used machine, most important is good operater and good maintenance. We are trying to persuade clients that Biesse machines (new or used one no difference) + our staff is winning team. We just ask clients to give to us chance that we show what we can do for them and our work will speak instead of us.

Can you expand on your Aspiration System Projects? What industries have you helped build these systems for, what is the general lead time from design concept to full installation and how much maintenance do these machines require?

Aspiration systems are something compleately different. Team of engineers from company Barucca – Adria aspirazioni (Italy) usually make complete project and calculation for everything. We worked mostly in wood industry till today. Normaly time from first meeting till finish of of installation can be from few weeks till few months (depend of many different reasons). This kind of systems require minimum maintenance.

Being located in Serbia, what are some of the challenges you content with when you have clients in other countries or far away? Do you do remote testing and technical support to resolve machining issues? How open is Serbia in general to heavy industrial equipment?

One (main) our office is in Serbia. Other one is in Egypt. For us is no problem to make our job anywhere around the world. Yes, we also do teleasisstance whet it is possible. In Serbia there is not so many heavy industrial equipment.

Anything else you’d like to add?

We are No.1 service for Biesse machines … 🙂 If somebody don’t believe he can check.