Hitachi construction machinery technician Levi Webster flew to Singapore last month to represent CablePrice at the 2018 Hitachi Top Technician Asia Pacific regional final.
There, Levi took out the top place for the region and will now soon be off to the world final in Tokyo.
Levi works at the Gracefield-based Wellington branch of CablePrice, the New Zealand distributor and technical support for Hitachi construction machinery. He was announced as 2018 Hitachi Top Technician for New Zealand back in May after the national final.
The runners-up were Lameck Jeche of Christchurch and Leigh Matthew of Silverdale near Auckland. The three competitors had to undertake theory questions and diagnose induced faults on a Hitachi excavator while also making recommendations to keep the excavator performing at its peak efficiency, with minimal downtime.
Hitachi Master technician Levi began working at CablePrice Auckland back in 2013 and later transferred to Wellington.
He took his knowledge and skills from five years working on Hitachi machinery to the Asia Pacific final where he competed against representatives from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia during the two-day competition.
During this year’s competition, Levi was up against five other technicians including, for the first time, representatives from Myanmar and the Philippines. The event was based around Hitachi’s ZX200-5G range of excavators.
On the first day, competitors were presented with faulty machines and had 90 minutes to diagnose, repair their machine and offer solutions to ensure minimum downtime. Levi was the only technician to complete this task and had to cope with the challenging conditions of 35˚C and 100 percent humidity.
The second day was devoted to machinery theory and again Levi performed extremely well, despite only working for CablePrice for five years. He was named the winner of the HMAP Regional Final for Hitachi Top Technician at a prize giving event that evening and is now preparing for the final in Tokyo.
“We are very proud of Levi and excited about his opportunity to go to Japan. The Asia Pacific win is great recognition of how hard Levi has worked and prepared and his real commitment to his trade,” says James Magill, CablePrice Wellington operations manager.
Levi follows in the footsteps of other CablePrice technicians who have enjoyed success at previous competitions and are the reigning World Champions.
The aim of the annual competition, which is now in its 11th year, is to foster the Kenkijin spirit, motivate and encourage technicians in their career and enhance regional and international communication.
Taken from the Japanese name of HCM (Hitachi Construction Machinery), ‘Kenkijin’ roughly translates as ‘citizen of HCM’. The Kenkijin Spirit embodies Hitachi’s shared values and principles.