Mechanical engineering company Voith’s new training academy will provide training for technicians in the heavy commercial vehicle and mining sectors, which will enable them to maintain and service vehicles according to inter- national best practice, improving operational efficiencies, fleet performance and reducing costs, says Voith Turbo South Africa roads division manager Peter Wraight.

The Voith Centre of Excellence will be hosted at the company’s Ekurhuleni premises, in Gauteng, and will offer training on heavy commercial vehicle components, including automatic transmissions and brake retarders, as well as couplings and fluid drives for the mining sector.

The centre draws information and international best practices from the global footprint and experience of its Germany-based parent company.

The aim is to train the skilled technicians needed in the mining sector and technicians for modern heavy commercial vehicles that have complex safety and performance systems, says Voith Turbo South Africa technical training officer Ashan Ramchuran.

The training courses were presented internally prior to launch. Training courses can be customised to the client’s needs and presented on their premises.

The training allows for the development of new employees and the modules increase in complexity to the level of highly skilled technical training to enable operators to be self-sufficient when maintaining modern heavy commercial vehicle systems, explains Ramchuran.

All the modules comprise a theoretical and a practical part, where trainees will work on the specific systems of different manu- facturers that they will be expected to maintain and service. The practical training is done at Voith South Africa’s Ekurhuleni workshop.

“The students will not merely use a space set aside for training, but will be involved in the rebuilding, servicing or maintenance of different manufacturers’ systems so that they can confidently perform these tasks on their own vehicles,” emphasises Wraight.

The scope of the courses ranges from sales-staff training, daily servicing courses and diagnostic and testing training to rebuilding courses.

However, the Centre of Excel-lence will only accept approved repairers and accredited rebuilders for the rebuilding courses.

The two-day courses require a minimum of seven and a maximum of ten people in attendance.

Voith South Africa is primarily offering the training to major customers and original-equipment manufacturers with the aim of training their internal training staff to international best practice standards.

“We want to create customer value and ensure that customers are self-reliant to ensure uptime and the availability of vehicles and reduce costs resulting from improper maintenance or repairs,” concludes Wraight.