Amsterdam’s EBS Public Transportation recently took possession of 164 OmniLinks and 47 Scania Higer A30s. They were delivered in several configurations and produced in Sweden, Poland and China. The buses are equipped with engines complying with the highest European environmental emissions standards – Euro 5 and EEV (Environmentally-friendly Enhanced Vehicles).

To complete these buses, a temporary workshop was established in Amsterdam, where a team of mechanics processed the buses for several months together with other suppliers.

One of the main reasons EBS Public Transportation chose Scania was the extensive support that Scania offers securing the operational uptime of the buses.

Watch a video from the occation.  

Success comes with professionalism, hard work and dedication. Success for service technicians is a result of all these things and more. Scania Top Team is a competition and training event that focuses on the service technician as the key for effective service. Effective service yields improved uptime and increased productivity for customers.

More information at http://www.scania.com/topteam

Brazil, Argentina and Peru all scored full points at one of the stations. The Peruvian team Los Audaces from Lima impressed with their team spirit and good cooperation, although it didn’t prove to be enough to win. Lisset Flores was the team’s spare parts specialist. “Top Team, for me, is much about teamwork,” she says, “and it reflects our daily challenges very well.”

The Brazilian team from Codema in São Paulo had requested help before the regional final from service technicians at other workshops in the country, asking them to send questions to the finalists. Their preparation paid off: the team from Codema – the biggest Scania workshop in the city – won second place.

“We really feel that we are representing all Scania workshops in Brazil, not only Codema,” says team leader Fernando Pereira.

The winning Argentine team came from the workshop Grandes Camiones Rio, situated on the edge of the Pampas. Team leader Mauricio Grosso noted out that their strategy was not to have fixed tasks within the team. He says, “In the end, the team’s total technical skills, team work and communication are essential.”

The World Championship Final in Top Team will be held in Södertälje, Sweden, during 14–16 October. The starting field consists of teams from Argentina, Brazil, Austria, Latvia, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, China and Australia.

Martin Ståhlberg, Executive Regional Director Latin American Region, was impressed by the participants’ efforts. He says that it highlighted “how good teamwork in the workshop really makes a difference.”

Read more about Scania Top Team 2011 >

Mikael Salomonsson, Product Manager

“I hope that the competition will be fair and exciting and that all participants will feel like winners regardless of the final result. The competition rounds are both theoretical and practical. The participants can expect a good mix of difficulty levels.”

How important is Top Team for improving the work quality of service personnel?

“The commitment and time that all participants put in to learn more about our products is very important. It means that we can take care of our vehicles and customers in a better way. The ratio we get from the money invested by the company and the time each person spends at work and during spare time to enhance skills is enormous.”

This year’s Top Team has attracted a record number of participants. Why do you think interest has increased?

“For many it is a fun way to gain more knowledge. Talented people get rewarded. Service technicians have a significant effect on sales in the long run. The company has taken this up and pushed the organization to reward our talented men and women around the world.”

The other two European regional finals will take place in Brussels during 20–22 and 27–29 May.

China won the first regional final in Scania Top Team 2010/11. Ten teams grappled for victory in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (8-10 April).

Scania’s Top Team competition is now under way around the world. Teams of service technicians and specialists in 46 markets have been honing their skills and competing to qualify for the regional finals, with the world final in Södertälje in October 2011 as their ultimate goal.

When the first such competition took place in Sweden in 1989, its aim was to raise the status of an occupational group that rarely attracted attention at the time. But today the situation is different. Skilled workers, parts and service staff have increasingly assumed the role of problem-solvers.

“Today, above all, it is a matter of listening to the customer and interpreting symptoms,” says Dan Löfgren, who is in charge of services development efforts within Services and Parts Operations. “With the increasingly advanced electronics, trouble-shooting software-related problems has become more and more complex.”

The Australians had been practising theoretical questions every lunch break for the last three weeks before the regional final. It paid off, Australia was ranked second and will participate in the World Final.

According to Löfgren, the biggest challenge is to persuade everyone working in the service market to fully realise the advantages of fast, reliable service.

“Our most important task is to ensure that our customers’ vehicles are taken care of and back in operation as fast as possible,” he says. “Everyone gains from that.”

The competition emphasises the importance of teamwork. It reflects the growing need for collaboration both on the service workshop floor and between parts and service specialists.

“Solving problems together reduces the pressure on each individual while improving the chances of getting vehicles back on the road quickly,” Löfgren says.

There is increasing interest in joining the Top Team competition. In the 2010/11 round the number of contestants and the number of qualifying rounds has been larger than in previous competitions. Löfgren is convinced that participation helps strengthen the professional identity of the service market staff.

“All of those who compete in Top Team are champions – and ambassadors for Scania,” he says. “The competition also gives them a unique chance to measure their skills on equal terms against colleagues from around the world.”

Björn Linderbrandt, Human Resources Director, Sales and Services Management, says that the Top Team project is well adapted to the new standards required by the service market profession. It is a way for Scania to show that it offers good opportunities to those who want to continue their professional development and boost their skill level.

“It is important for our service technicians to be in the forefront,” Linderbrandt says. “It makes us more attractive as an employer and enables us to create a distinctive identity compared to our competitors.”

The Swedish national Top Team final was held in Södertälje 22 January 2011. Of the ten finalists, the team “Snoddas drängar” (Snoddas’ lads) from Jönköping will represent Sweden at the international competitions in Brussels.

Scania Top Team is back. Following a moratorium during the financial crisis, Scania has resumed competitions for service market staff including technicians and parts staff. International competitions are being organised throughout the world and during 2011 a total of 46 countries will participate.

After winning both qualifications in competition with 138 Swedish teams, Snoddas drängar – representing Atteviks Lastbilar in Jönköping – will compete as Sweden’s representative in the international finals in Brussels 20–22 May. A total of five finals will be decided and the two best teams from each final will qualify for the Top Team World Championship Final to be held in Södertälje in October 2011.

The winning team ”Snoddas Drängar” from Atteviks Lastvagnar i Jönköping. From left: Gunnar Harrysson (coach), Tommy Hallberg, Joakim Edlund, Johan Södergård, Fredrik Liljeberg and Mikael Olsson.

The tenth Swedish final was organised at Scania’s Training Centre in Södertälje. The competition focuses on areas such as problem analysis, troubleshooting, parts and product issues, remedial action and verification. “To solve the various assignments under strong time pressure competitors need, in addition to excellent skills, a good team spirit and an organised approach,” says Gunnar Carlsson, responsible for technical training at Scania. “The competitions are designed to emulate daily work in which customer needs constitute the competition’s challenging assignments.”

Fierce races against the allotted time took place at the practical and theoretical assignment stations. A combination of a systematic approach, team discipline, skills and keeping nerves under control were decisive.

Snoddas drängar’s team coach Gunnar Harrysson believes that his team’s excellent collaboration worked in their favour. “Before results were announced, we weren’t aware that we had succeeded, especially considering the fact that we competed for the first time and the other teams were more experienced. But perhaps our lower average age contributed toward the victory; we’re faster with the computer,” Gunnar Harrysson says adding his thanks to the other teams for cordially congratulating them on being victorious.

Interestingly, Tony Svensson whose nickname is Snoddas, was missing from the competition line-up since he had travelled on previously planned holidays. As substitute, Fredrik Liljeberg with less than three years’ experience was called in. “Competing was a tremendously nervous experience, although it isn’t all that different from everyday work with the pressure from drivers and hauliers,” he says.

During 2007, Argentine company Felipe Andreu e Hijos turned the work of maintenance and repair of its 75 Scania trucks over to Scania. The deal has made the company more efficient in transport management and customer service, and the owners have benefitted with more free time and an improved quality of life.

During 2007, Argentine company Felipe Andreu e Hijos turned the work of maintenance and repair of its 75 Scania trucks over to Scania.

“Our aim is to be ever more efficient in what we do, which is to transport and store products in our warehouses,” says Eduardo Andreu, a part owner of the company (with father Felipe and brothers Leonardo and Fabián) and the person responsible for company units. “The maintenance and repair of the trucks is not our business. Scania can do a much better job of that than we can.”

Outsourcing, he says, has allowed him more free time to engage in personal activities, such as singing Latin American folk music with a group of friends. In addition, he has also found time to fulfil a childhood dream – to learn to play the guitar.

The first three months of the agreement were the most complex, because all the company’s Scania trucks had to be inspected at the dealer’s repair shop to determine whether they fulfilled the manufacturer’s standards. Some units had to be sent to the repair shop more than once, which forced changes in the company’s logistics. After this first period, the vehicles were inserted into an exclusive, preventive regimen, which, says Eduardo, greatly reduced the premature wear of the trucks’ components.

Felipe Andreu e Hijos is located in the Luján de Cuyo district, 1,100 kilometres from Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, at the foot of Andes mountains, in the province of Mendoza.

The company transports and stores general and hazardous products, using some 100 trucks in all. The trucks travel around parts of Argentina – a continental area of almost 2.8 million square kilometres – and cross the Andes into Chile.

Felipe Andreu, Eduardo’s father, was born in Spain and immigrated to Argentina in 1951, when he was 13 years old. His relationship with the transport business started in 1962 when he purchased a truck. Later he purchased two L 111s with his old partner, making him one of the first 10 customers of Scania Argentina, which was established in the country in 1976. Since then, his fleet has been composed primarily of Scania units, and today it is one of Scania’s reference transport companies.

In 2007, the company started a driving school to teach young people. The school also functions to incorporate new drivers into the company. The five best students in each level are given an opportunity to become company employees. The courses include practical driving and theoretical classes about safety, legislation, first aid and mechanics, among others. Staff at the  dealer Aconcagua Vehículos Comerciales (AVC) systematically collaborate with the academy as teachers and examiners in several of the qualifying subjects.

Meanwhile, AVC and Scania Argentina technicians carried out an intensive course for all of Andreu’s existing drivers. This event, which in three days trained drivers in the correct use of Scania products, will be repeated annually.

“Scania is a heritage that we received from my father,” says Eduardo, “and we have always felt backed up by the brand. Because of this, we consider Scania close to our company and, because we are a family company, it is also very close to our family.”

Scania’s Services
Scania’s growing range of service-related products supports transport and logistics companies in their business operations.

These service-related products encompass everything from parts, maintenance agreements and round-the-clock workshop services on various continents to driver training and IT support for transport planning.

Altogehter, Scania is represented in about 100 countries through approximately 1,000 local sales facilities and 1,500 service points.