Scania New Zealand’s top professional service team is trucking off to Thailand – a step closer to taking out Scania’s global Top Team competition.

The service team from Scania Christchurch trumped the competition in the New Zealand Top Team National Final, recently held in the team’s hometown.

Scania’s Top Team competition challenges professional service teams within the Scania network to take on theoretical and practical exercises requiring specialist knowledge, team spirit, and discipline. The format of the competition is designed around daily work patterns with the main objective being ‘satisfying customer needs’.

Scania New Zealand managing director Rafael Alvarenga said the competition encourages collaboration and increases vehicle personnel knowledge by combining training and teamwork.

“The great thing is that our technicians benefit from the training and teamwork, but the real winners are our Scania customers, benefitting from having the very best service teams look after their trucks,” he said.

Everyone who works in the Scania service area is welcome to compete in teams of three to five people, with the most common contestants being service technicians, parts specialists and service advisors.

Four teams competed in the New Zealand Top Team National Final this year with the following result:

1st: ‘Cog Swappers’ from Christchurch

2nd: ‘Screw Loose’ from Palmerston North

3rd: ‘Roto Vegas Griffins’ from Rotorua

4th: ‘Southern XT’ from Invercargill

The ‘Cog Swappers’ will head to Thailand next year to represent New Zealand at the Scania Top Team Asia Oceania regional final.