MAN Truck and Bus plays a big role in the IRTE Skills Challenge and believes that the competition helps to raise the profile of the industry
Being up close to the competitors of the IRTE Skills Challenge, as the competition judges are, enables MAN Field Service Manager Steve Lilley to witness first-hand the talent of the technicians and apprentices. He believes that the benefits they gain from putting themselves forward are manifold.
“I talk to the competitors, so I get to know a little bit about them,” he says. “It’s a competition and everybody’s competing to win – that’s the golden prize. But on the other side, they do leave the competition having learnt a few things that they probably didn’t know before. And sometimes they leave realising that they knew more than they thought they did.
“It’s a good opportunity to put them in the spotlight.”
Each year MAN contributes to the competition by devising a test which is used for the event; often, the test will be completed on one of its most modern vehicles.
“We believe that the competition is very important in the industry and our network,” says Steve. “Mainly for raising the profile of the apprentices and technicians, but also because the technology on these vehicles is moving so fast, so the level of technicians needed to work on them is very high.”
MAN will be bolstering its service network with the BusTopService initiative in 2019, an all-round repair and maintenance service for buses.
