Ivan Salvo from Ponsse Chile is fol­lowing the Ponsse Inter­na­tio­nal Mec­ha­nic Com­pe­ti­tion with a great inte­rest. He knows the exci­te­ment of com­pe­ting and how life and career chan­ging this expe­rience can be.

Ivan Salvo atten­ded the Ponsse Inter­na­tio­nal Mec­ha­nic Com­pe­ti­tion in 2023 and now, two years later he is back in Fin­land as a trai­ner. A lot has chan­ged during the past two years in his life.

“I took part in this com­pe­ti­tion two years ago as a per­so­nal chal­lenge. I wan­ted to test my skills, but I ended up lear­ning how much there was that I did not know yet” recalls Ivan. “Even I am here as a trai­ner and spec­ta­tor, this com­pe­ti­tion is still very exci­ting to me and brings back some good memo­ries.”

“The com­pe­ti­tion is a good oppor­tu­nity to see how well you know, for example cont­rol sys­tems, mec­ha­nics of the mac­hi­nes and you also disco­ver a lot of new ways to work. But you also find out how much you still have left to learn and grow as a pro­fes­sio­nal. “

This ack­now­ledg­ment gave him moti­va­tion to start impro­ving his know­ledge and skills as a mec­ha­nic.

“I star­ted rea­ding and stu­dying mac­hine manuals to learn more about how the mac­hi­nes wor­ked and this was a step up in my pro­fes­sio­nal life. Then I con­ti­nued to study to become a tech­nician,” Ivan says. 

Today Ivan works as a ser­vice advi­sor and trai­ner in Ponsse’s glo­bal ser­vice orga­niza­tion. He trains Chi­lean mec­ha­nics but also hopes that he could tra­vel across Latin Ame­rica sha­ring the skills he has lear­ned.

Pro­fes­sio­nal growth has not stop­ped. This time Ivan stayed five weeks in Fin­land, and he wor­ked with Fin­nish mec­ha­nics and tech­nicians in both log­ging site ser­vices and works­hop to furt­her improve his skills and fault-fin­ding tech­niques in as many as pos­sible ser­vice situa­tions.

“This has been a great change in my career. I do not believe this would have hap­pe­ned wit­hout the eye-ope­ning expe­rience of the com­pe­ti­tion,” he con­ti­nues.

Great lear­ning expe­rience

Two-day com­pe­ti­tion and 12 dif­fe­rent tasks take their toll on com­pe­ti­tors, while sol­ving problems ran­ging from mec­ha­nical ins­tal­la­tions to main­te­nance tasks and hydrau­lic fault fin­ding to infor­ma­tion sys­tems. How does one pre­pare and train for the com­pe­ti­tion?

“I have encou­ra­ged mec­ha­nics to study manuals and prac­tice their basic skills. Most of the time when you concent­rate and read instruc­tions tho­roughly, you will manage well. I can­not help com­pe­ti­tors with their tasks or tell them how to do them, but I can help them pre­pare men­tally by tal­king about my own expe­rience,” Ivan tells.

In the com­pe­ti­tion jud­ges fol­low clo­sely com­pe­ti­tors’ per­for­mance and assess it from many points of view. For example, jud­ges assess occu­pa­tio­nal safety, troubles­hoo­ting skills, wor­king met­hods, abi­lity to fol­low instruc­tions, and per­form mac­hine tes­ting in main­te­nance tasks. Each com­pe­ti­tor recei­ves per­so­nal feed­back on their per­for­mance, as well as a writ­ten job desc­rip­tion to enable lear­ning.

Besi­des lear­ning and com­pe­ting, com­pe­ti­tion is a great oppor­tu­nity to meet col­lea­gues from dif­fe­rent count­ries and change one’s expe­riences, wor­king met­hods and ideas.

“I believe that every com­pe­ti­tor lea­ves the com­pe­ti­tion with both con­fi­dence and moti­va­tion to learn more. There is good spi­rit and toget­her­ness among the mec­ha­nics; simi­lar work con­nects us,” Ivan con­ti­nues.

Read more about the 2025 com­pe­ti­tion:  Pons­se’s Mec­ha­nic Inter­na­tio­nal Com­pe­ti­tion: Mats Axels­son from Swe­den won the even com­pe­ti­tion