​​Scania New Zealand’s top service team has won its regional final in Thailand for the global Scania Top Team competition.

Alongside co-winners Scania Malaysia, the Cog Swappers have qualified to compete in the global Top Team final in Sodertalje, Sweden this April, where they will take on 11 other service teams from around the world to vie for a prize of just over NZD$80,000.

Scania’s global Top Team competition challenges the technological skills of professional service teams within the Scania network, putting them through theoretical and practical exercises that require specialist knowledge, team spirit, and discipline.

“We’re super proud of our Scania New Zealand Top Team. They have worked extremely hard to defend their win this time around and we hope to see them achieve this at the final in Sweden,” said Scania New Zealand service director Raul Rodriguez.

“It’s great for us to know that our service technicians are among the best in the world and we are providing our customers with world-class service.”

The Top Team competition format is designed around daily work patterns with the main objective being to satisfy the needs of the customer. Teams of five are required to complete five practical workstations each with a 20-minute time limit.

The global Scania Top Team competition started in Sweden in 1989, originally restricted to Swedish workshops. In 1996 the competition grew to the five Nordic countries and extended to 17 markets internationally in 2003. The last competition in 2018 saw 70 international markets compete where the New Zealand team was crowned champions.