The cream of Kubota UK's service team gathered in September for the first Kubota Skills competition in the UK, an event that seeks to put the technical competence of its staff to the test.
The event has long been an annual fixture in Japan, but the decision was taken this year to follow their lead and roll out a UK event to test Kubota staff and serve as prelude to the launch of the Kubota National Dealer Skills Competition in 2016, which will widen the entry to include technicians working at dealerships across Kubota's UK network.
The competition opened with an introduction from Kubota UK MD, Dave Roberts, who was joined by representatives from Japan and Spain, who were there to gauge success before rolling the event out across other sales centres in Europe.
Six competitors took part, the youngest only 21 years old. They were Rob Fox, Martin Tyler, Alan Kirby, James Westbrook, Rob Wilkins and George Nowell.
The assessment criteria was twofold: a written, hour-long assessment followed by an intense 90-minute challenge in which competitors had to diagnose and fix five faults on the Kubota M110GX-II tractor. Each was judged not only on finding and fixing the faults, but also on demonstrating the method behind their decision making.
Service and Training Manager Keith Miller said: 'A huge amount of work has gone into preparing for the event, to ensure that we deliver a slick and professional event for our team. We are very proud of the six who took part and of their abilities when put to test under exam conditions.
'While the priority was to test the service skills of our staff and demonstrate Kubota UK's service excellence, the event also served as a dry run for next year's dealer skills competition, which will be run in the same fashion.
'It was important to make today tough but fun and engaging and something our dealers will be excited to get involved in. There's also the opportunity for healthy competition between dealers to take the UK crown and compete against their counterparts on the world stage.'
In the event, one of the youngest members of the Kubota service team, James Westbrook, was crowned champion and he will go on to represent Kubota UK in Japan in December, competing against other Kubota sales territories for the No.1 Technician Gold accolade.
By 2018, Kubota hopes all its branches around the world will compete in a world cup contest with two Global Technical Champions emerging, one from Kubota staff and the other from the dealers' representatives.
