Specifi

3 Webinars. 3 Days. 3 Languages.
Join Elisa Puppoli for a webinar exploring Specifi’s cloud-based solutions, including Specifi eCatalog, Sketch, Design, and Quote.

Choose your preferred language and register for one of the sessions:

6 October — Italian
🕤 9:30 AM GMT+2
👉 e5f9c54c-89a5-4968-87fc-91a61e62e435@ace5856a-78a8-4bd1-b952-438890bdd3eb?source=copyLinkLegacyShareLinkDialog" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/e5f9c54c-89a5-4968-87fc-91a61e62e435@ace5856a-78a8-4bd1-b952-438890bdd3eb?source=copyLinkLegacyShareLinkDialog

7 October — English
🕤 9:30 AM GMT+2
👉 b5fd87d4-1fe3-4cb8-b2c4-c14f6970210e@ace5856a-78a8-4bd1-b952-438890bdd3eb?source=copyLinkLegacyShareLinkDialog" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/b5fd87d4-1fe3-4cb8-b2c4-c14f6970210e@ace5856a-78a8-4bd1-b952-438890bdd3eb?source=copyLinkLegacyShareLinkDialog

8 October — German
🕤 9:30 AM GMT+2
👉 30a70692-a5c1-4bc4-a93c-6476450611d7@ace5856a-78a8-4bd1-b952-438890bdd3eb?source=copyLinkLegacyShareLinkDialog" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/30a70692-a5c1-4bc4-a93c-6476450611d7@ace5856a-78a8-4bd1-b952-438890bdd3eb?source=copyLinkLegacyShareLinkDialog

Whether you’re a professional designer looking for an advanced tool for designing commercial kitchens, or a retailer needing a simple program for creating sketches and quotations, there’s a Specifi solution for you.

Fabio Tantaro's latest piece, "Digital Idiocracy," makes a pointed argument: in the digital world, confidence is increasingly mistaken for authority, and wisdom is losing ground to prepackaged, mediocre results: https://en.specifiglobal.com/blog/digital-idiocracy/

His core point is that when you hire a professional, you pay for far more than the deliverable. You're paying for knowledge, experience, time, security, honesty, and judgment. That's often forgotten when clients ask for BIM services without understanding BIM, and choose on price because they can't tell quality from poor work.

His antidote comes from Marcus Aurelius. Ask yourself: Is my understanding sufficient for this subject?

✅ If yes, apply yourself fully.
🔄 If no, step aside for someone more capable.
🤝 If duty requires you to act anyway, do your best and seek guidance.

It's a good reminder to know the limits of our own expertise and to value the people who have earned theirs.

For Immersion Systems, getting their AutoCAD and Revit files published for the consultant and design community was a priority. But the real value came from what happened next:

“Their Content Lab team was exceptionally helpful and responsive, which reduced our amount of work. The quality of the content was superior to what else we were looking at. Their team made our jobs so much easier, which saved us valuable time and resources.”

That’s what we want the Specifi Content Lab experience to deliver: high-quality content, a streamlined process, and less work for manufacturers.

Thank you to John Cantrell, President of Immersion Systems, for sharing his experience with Specifi.

Not every problem needs AI.
Full read from Fabio Tantaro here: https://en.specifiglobal.com/blog/think-outside-the-bot/

Before any project gets a green light, ask two questions:
1️⃣ Why are we doing this?
2️⃣ What will it actually do to help?

It's almost annoyingly simple, but it saves you from building the wrong thing. AI is exciting, so it's easy to reach for it first. Sometimes the real answer is a flow, a validation rule, or a plain old automation: deterministic, predictable, and much easier to govern.

AI earns its place when the task needs language understanding. Automation earns its place when the task is repeatable and the rules don't change.

So, the question isn't "Can we use AI here?" It's "Does this problem actually need what AI is good at?"

We'd rather spend five minutes on "why" than five weeks rebuilding.

"Work hard, play hard": but what if playing hard is the hard work?
That's the idea behind LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®: a facilitated method that uses physical bricks to unlock honest, authentic conversations in teams. It's built on "hand knowledge": the idea that thinking with your hands lets people build 3D models of ideas and tell stories that words alone can't capture.

Full article by Fabio Tantaro here: https://en.specifiglobal.com/blog/work-hard-lego-serious-play-hard/

A few things worth sitting with:

🔵 Tactile beats digital, more often than we admit. In a world of screens and software demos, a tangible, hands-on experience is often the thing people miss most and the thing that actually drives understanding.

🔵 Digital thinking traps us in yes/no. We default to discrete categories - go/no-go, right/wrong - because it feels objective. Analog thinking, by contrast, embraces the fuzzy, subjective, infinite space in between. That's where nuance and often innovation live.

🔵 The best teams act like kindergartens. Remember the Marshmallow Challenge? Kindergarteners consistently out-build MBAs and CEOs at constructing the tallest spaghetti tower. Why? They iterate fast, aren't afraid to fail, and just start building. Share everything. Play fair. Talk it out. Take time for cookies.

Innovation doesn't only come from dashboards and decks; sometimes it comes from sketching, deep focus, and just picking up the bricks.

Big news from our Support Team!
As part of our reorganization, we're excited to share that we've tripled our support team's size and capacity to better serve you. This means not only faster response times but, mostly, more specialized expertise across our product suite than in the past.

This decision reflects our new CEO Fabio Tantaro's commitment to putting customers first.

As our platform and user base grow, we're making sure our support keeps pace, because great software deserves great people behind it.

A big thank you to our new support heroes, who will help build a new foundation we will scale from.

Have a question or need help? We're more ready than ever to jump in.

Why your BIM files aren't just "digital chairs"
In the Foodservice Equipment industry, too many manufacturers still treat BIM files (RFA format) like immutable products: deliver one file, job done.

Fabio Tantaro argues this "monolith" mindset gets it backwards: https://en.specifiglobal.com/blog/mind-the-gap-between-your-bim-files-and-any-platform/

A few key points from his piece:

🔵 BIM isn't a static handoff
An information model moves through phase transitions "Design → Coordination → Construction → Operation" and the same parameter means something different at every stage. A "three-phase wall socket" note in design becomes a performance spec in construction and a maintenance attribute in operation.

🟡 The "candy bag" problem
Sending 100 fixed, unconfigurable BIM files is like handing over 100 identical chairs and hoping for the best. The real opportunity is one configurable asset backed by structured data: a true digital twin capable of generating countless valid combinations.

🟢 Your BIM files are digital assets
BIM files with value that mirrors your physical equipment, not a PDF-style paperwork exercise.

🟠 The real barrier isn't technical skill, it's infrastructure
Manufacturers don't need to become software companies. What's missing is the platform layer (3D engine, data infrastructure, security) that makes configurable, structured BIM/PIM data possible.

Understanding PIM and platform logic before jumping to conclusions about "how BIM should work" is what separates manufacturers who unlock real value from those stuck shipping static files.

Complex commercial kitchen layouts don’t have to take hours.
For Meridian Restaurant Supply, Specifi Sketch helps turn complex layouts into client-ready designs in minutes.

As a second-generation, family-owned restaurant supply company serving the St. Louis area since 1992, Meridian works with a wide range of customers and projects. With Sketch, their team can quickly create 3D layouts, search and configure equipment from the Specifi eCatalog, and bring concepts to life directly in the browser.

“Specifi helped turn our complex commercial kitchen layouts into client-ready designs in minutes!”

- Eli Miller, Owner | Meridian Restaurant Supply

Design faster. Visualize sooner. Get clients from concept to confident decision.

Learn more about Specifi Sketch → https://us.specifiglobal.com/products/specifi-sketch/

Specifi now speaks Arabic! 🌍
As part of our reorganization, we're excited to share that, for the first time ever in the history of our company, we've added a new sales resource dedicated to serving customers across the Middle East and North Africa, now available in Arabic!

This means faster, more localized help for our Arabic-speaking customers, with support tailored to the needs and context of the MENA region.

What this means for you:

✅ Get help in Arabic from a professional that understands your market
✅ Faster response time for MENA-based inquiries
✅ The same sales and technical quality support you expect, now more accessible than ever

Our new CEO, Fabio Tantaro, is committed to making our customer success experience as seamless as possible for clients everywhere, and this is an important step in that direction.