What's the idea behind these technician competitions?

Eric Benge, Regional Maintenance Manager: "It's a great way for our technicians to expand their knowledge, build relationships with one another and with our vendor partners and improve morale. And have a lot of fun while they're doing it."

How often do you do these?

"Every year. We start at the local level as early as February, then move on to regional competitions in June or July and finish with our national competition in Springdale, Arkansas (near the home office in Bentonville) in September."

How many local and regional competitions are there?

"We have 44 local competitions and five regional ones. Some of the state trucking associations also have contests, and many of our people participate in those too."

How many technicians are involved?

"This year, we had 1260 participants in local competitions. The top two in each went on to one of our five regional competitions, so there were 88 participants at that level.

"Then, we brought the top three from each regional contest to our national competition, resulting in 15 technicians competing for the top positions here in September."

Of the original contestants, that means about 1 out of 84 made it to the finals.

"Yes, and there were three finalists in the national competition, so you could say that only about 1 out of 420 who participate placed in the finals. It's a pretty elite group.

"Wal-Mart pays all expenses for the top three technicians from each of the five regions - and their spouses - to come to the national competition. We believe this lets our associates, their families and their co-workers know how much we value their contribution to the company."

How do these competitions actually work?

"Each one, whether it's at the local, regional or national level, consists of two parts: a written test and a hands-on section.

"The written tests consist of 30 multiple-choice questions we've purchased from the official ASE [National Association for Automotive Service Excellence] test preparation series."

What categories do you cover?

We draw questions from seven areas that are relevant to what our technicians do each day."

How can associates study for these?

"We put together a study guide for them that contains 100 questions similar to the ones we ask. They never know exactly which areas we'll focus on, so they can't 'cram.' That means they've got to work on their overall general knowledge.

"At the local level, especially, there's a lot of excitement. Everybody who wants to can try out, so there's plenty of discussion around the lunch table and around the shop about the study guide questions and the answers.

"We encourage every one of our technicians to participate at least at the written test level."

But not everyone is chosen to go on.

"No, but after each local competition, our local service managers conduct follow-ups, in which they go over the entire written test, explaining why each of the correct answers is correct. Plus, they also go through the hands-on portion, explaining to everybody what they were looking for in each one of the hands-on skill areas."

How do you set up the non-written, hands-on part?

"We invite all our vendor partners to participate in this aspect of the competition. As you can imagine, we have lots of vendor partners, and most of them are eager to be involved.

"What they generally do is set up some sort of component 'fault condition' that's in their area of expertise, then 'grade' our technicians on finding it and suggesting how it might be corrected.

"Purkey's Fleet Electric Inc., which participated in our 2006 National competition, has a special electrical test setup just for this kind of thing."

Do your technicians do actual repairs as part of the competition?

"We focus on diagnosis only. In each category, we allow the participant 15 minutes to examine the truck or trailer to try to determine what needs to be done. We'll have five different vehicle 'stations', with conditions that need to be diagnosed, and each tech will rotate from one station to the next."

Is that "real world"?

"We believe it is. When you're working on vehicles, you often have only about 15 minutes or so to spend diagnosing a problem.

"Contestants don't have to actually fix anything during the competition, but part of their score is based on what steps they suggest should be taken.

"Doing the actual work isn't really possible, because it could take many hours to complete a repair, then the vehicle would have to be set back to its original condition for the next contestant."

Is it pretty much always the same vendor partners?

"We change it around a lot so all our vendor partners can participate, and so it doesn't get predictable. We even keep the names of the vendor partners who are going to participate secret, again, so nobody can 'cram.'

"We also keep all our technicians sequestered indoors until it's their turn to go through the hands-on portion."

Why is that?

"You can learn a lot about what's wrong with a vehicle just by watching what another contestant does.

"And once they've completed their hands-on portion, we keep those contestants separated from the ones who haven't taken it yet, so those who have finished can't accidentally tip off the others as to what the problems are with the equipment."

There was also a vehicle inspection as part of the competition.

"We have each technician give a tractor-trailer unit a full preventive maintenance inspection. This is a good test of their overall ability to recognize potential trouble conditions.

"'Just-in-time' delivery is critically important to our distribution centers and stores, and we're achieving better than 98 percent on-time delivery system-wide. Part of that is because of the skills of our technicians in recognizing potential problems during inspections."

We also saw a driver competition going on.

"Our national technician competition is held along with our national driver competition. So, while there were 15 technicians competing, there were also 20 drivers who had to complete their own written test then put their trucks through their paces."

How long does all this take?

"Our 2006 competition took all day, and we capped it off with a banquet attended by all participants, where the top technicians and top drivers were recognized and awarded plaques."

What happens next?

"The top drivers go on to the American Trucking Associations (ATA) national driving contest, and the top technicians go on to the TMC contest.

"In 2006, the technician competition, called 'SuperTech 2006,' was held in Austin, Texas. We sent eight contestants, and we're very proud to say that two of our technicians finished among the top five in the nation."

If there were only three winners in your national competition, how did you send eight to Austin?

"Besides our national winners, we also send the number one technician from each of our regions (of course, sometimes that's the same person who placed in the national competition). We also always send our number one technician from last year, and any who 'placed' in their state competitions.

"That added up to eight."

How long have you been sending technicians to the TMC competition?

"The TMC 'SuperTech' competition is pretty new, and has only been around for the past two years. We've sent people both years."

Is the TMC event different from yours?

"As soon as TMC started their competition, we adapted ours to pattern it after theirs. And actually, we didn't have to make too many changes. They have 10 'skill stations' in their competition, but both of us use a combination of written tests and hands-on work."

How would you summarize the benefits to Wal-Mart of these technician competitions?

"We believe these competitions directly benefit us by giving our people a big incentive to study and learn more about their jobs. Every technician takes the written test, and there's a huge amount of discussion of the test topics in the shops, both before and after each part of the competition.

"And, it's discussion about technical matters - what the answer to each question is - which is yet another opportunity for our associates to learn and share knowledge with their peers.

"In addition, we encourage each participant to spend time with our vendor partners after each hands-on competition, asking questions and learning more about diagnosing vehicle conditions.

"That not only further increases our people's knowledge, but forges valuable bonds between them and our vendor representatives, so that later on, our associates will know who to call for help."

And the effect on morale?

"Pretty much everybody in the trucking business knows how difficult it is to get and keep good technicians. We believe these contests have a huge effect on increasing the visibility of our technical staff, providing them with recognition, appreciation and pride.

"Supervisors get 'bragging rights' when their techs do well, and of course, each location and region has its opportunity to share the spotlight.

"The whole thing fosters greater technical knowledge, greater teamwork, stronger relationships with vendor partners and earns the company recognition for its technical achievements.

"So, participating in these competitions actually produces an intensity and enthusiasm about the job that creates better technicians.

"Plus, I think you'll find that everyone who participates finds the whole thing a lot of fun!"

Editor's Note: As we mentioned, while the technician competition was going on, there was also a driving competition taking place. We'll be bringing you a report on that at another time.