The winning team at the world´s largest service market competition, Volvo International Service Training Awards (VISTA), has now been selected. After a thrilling final in Volvo Trucks’ hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden, team Kiired Insenerid from Estonia came out on top. They were followed by teams from Denmark and Sweden.
More than 16 000 technicians in some 4 500 teams from Volvo Trucks and Volvo Buses’ global dealer network, have participated in this year’s VISTA championship – a global event that was first run back in 1957.
Team South Africa, made up of four service specialists and technicians from Volvo Trucks Cape Town, came in a respectable 18th position out of the 43 teams that participated in the world final.
“Our mechanics play a key role in contributing to our customers’ success by keeping their trucks on the road, and VISTA is a great way for them to improve their workshop skills. I’m very impressed by the technical knowledge of the teams this year and the speed with which they solved the challenges presented to them,” comments Roger Alm, President of Volvo Trucks.
The main objectives with the VISTA competition are to encourage competence development and to build team spirit and pride. Highly skilled and motivated technicians enable Volvo Trucks workshops to carry out fault diagnosis and fix trucks’ problems ‘right first time’, in a timely manner and to high quality standards. These skills are key in helping customers achieve maximum uptime for their trucks. In the end, this leads to improved customer service.
In the finals held in Gothenburg, 43 teams of technicians and service market staff competed for two days to complete six stations, on topics including CAN Link fault-tracing, I-Shift and bodywork. Two stations were VR stations with focus on electric vehicles, one assignment consisted of installing an electric motor on a truck. The numbers of electric trucks and buses are now quickly growing and being able to safely work with electric motors is an important skill for technicians in practically every workshop around the world.
According to Waldemar Christensen, MD of Volvo Trucks South Africa, says although the SA team did not walk away from the competition with top honours, they learned invaluable lessons were learnt that will benefit local customers.
“VISTA is not only important for Volvo Trucks’ aftermarket personnel, but also of great importance for the entire company. It is a way of showing how much we all value the hard work carried out at our workshops all over the world, and that we invest in what our customers appreciate most – world-class service,” says Christensen.
