Scania’s company-owned Dandenong sales and service branch in south-eastern Melbourne is home to a highly successful team of award-winning technicians.

• Andrew Ouranios - Kangan Institute Industry Excellence Awards Inspirational Student of the Year, Automotive 2025, and Scania Apprentice of the Year 2025

• Hayden Peggie - Kangan Institute Apprentice of the Year Lionel Gell School of Instruction Award in Automotive 2025, sponsored by the Sir Henry Royce Foundation. 

• Daniel Jones - Scania Apprentice of the Year 2024

In addition to the expert heavy vehicle workshop team that secured a place in the Scania Global Top Team Finals to be held in Sweden in May, Dandenong branch is also home to three highly awarded apprentices, who have received two Kangan Institute Awards and two Scania Apprentice of the Year Awards between them.

Scania Dandenong Branch Manager Liz Mistretta says the success has come about due to excellent team spirit and a genuine desire to do a great job for customers.

“Our workshop teams have been firing on all cylinders in the past few years. There is a definite buzz about the place and everyone from the junior apprentices to the team leaders have been working their hearts out.

“We have seen an uplift in service work, and increasing levels of customer satisfaction, which is a fine reward or the efforts the teams have been putting in.

“I am very excited that our Top Team of five enthusiastic and experienced workshop legends will be representing Scania Australia and the wider Asia and Oceania region at the World Finals in May, but just as rewarding is the trio of apprentices who have been recognised for their hard work and their positive attitudes. It really speaks to the atmosphere within the branch and their desire to be the best they can be. It is really heart-warming,” Liz says.

Daniel Jones is a fourth-year apprentice at Scania, and he was judged to be the 2024 Scania Apprentice of the Year.

“I’ve tried to be consistent and have worked hard continuously,” he says, explaining why he believes he won the award. “I try to make sure I'm always putting 100% into what I'm doing, to be fully committed to the tasks at hand.

“I am very much into cars, and I've always wanted to be some type of mechanic, but I didn't know if it was going to be light or heavy vehicles. While at school I was the lead designer in our ‘Formula 1 in Schools’ STEM Racing project designing and racing a model car, which is part of a global science and technology competition. We did well and contested the State finals.”

He says both the Scania and TAFE apprentice programmes have taught him a lot about the job and also what it means to be an apprentice. “I have done a lot so far, servicing vehicles learning on the job, but the Scania training has been consistent, which is an advantage.”

In terms of his future, after qualifying as a diesel technician at the end of 2026, Daniel aims to stay on at Scania for a few years.

“I would like to continue with Scania because it is a global company, and it has good workplace values. Later this year we’ll be doing a battery electric module at TAFE on EV safety and skills, and that sounds cool,” he says.

Second-year apprentice Hayden Peggie recently secured the Kangan Institute 2025 Apprentice of the Year Lionel Gell School of Instruction Award in Automotive, sponsored by the Sir Henry Royce Foundation. 

The Award is all the more impressive because until recently, Hayden hadn’t planned a career as a technician.

“Early on, I wasn't going to be a mechanic. Then, I went to a careers expo in Melbourne at the Exhibition Centre and spoke to someone from Scania about what was involved in the job, and I saw an opening advertised, so I applied. My Dad has been involved in machinery and there’s nothing he can’t fix, so I have been exposed to mechanical things.

“I am in my third year now, and I have found the Scania and TAFE programme very supportive, and there are good people to work with at Scania. The training and the quality of work I have been involved with in the workshop has been impressive, and I've been given a lot of opportunities to do different things. I am involved in the engine rebuild programme, I’m servicing trucks and buses, and I’m currently rebuilding a differential.

“After qualifying as a mechanic, I would like to do the auto-electrician training as well and an EV course. Ideally, I want to get as many qualifications as I can. And I'd like to stay with Scania for a while, and follow a career path, trying some different things,” Hayden says.

The third-year apprentice says that there’s a good vibe in the Dandenong workshop. “There are team building activities and we’re a close-knit unit which is good, and it’s the same story when we do national training with apprentices from across Scania Australia.

“I was very surprised when Liz called me into the office to say that I had won this award. I think the TAFE trainer had seen that I’m across the Scania technology and have been helping out our TAFE classmates explaining how our tech works. It’s really cool for me to have the Award but it’s also great for the branch, too, it is recognition for how we’re being trained and the work we’re all putting in is paying off,” Hayden says.

Now also a third-year apprentice, Andrew Ouranios was presented with the 2025 Inspirational Student of the Year Award in the automotive category at the Kangan Industry Excellence Awards, and most recently was also presented with the 2025 Scania Apprentice of the Year Award.

“Receiving these awards feels great,” Andrew says. “It feels like my hard work's been acknowledged and rewarded. I've tried my very hardest for the two years of being an apprentice. The Awards show that my managers understand that I've learned quite a lot in two years and that I have a strong work ethic.”

Andrew is one of the most enthusiastic and passionate apprentice technicians around, and he has already found a niche in which to specialise, rebuilding engines and giving them a second life.

“I want to stay with Scania for as long as I can. I'm learning heaps even though I’ve still got a long way to go. I'm lucky to be on these engines. I've done five or six so far and I'm getting quicker and much better at doing them. The engines have covered between 750,000 km and one million km and we’re refurbishing them before they fail, which might damage the block making it harder to save.

“Rebuilding an engine takes around 45 hours and I get a real sense of achievement. It's such a good feeling, because you've taken something that was almost dead and brought it back to life,” he says.

With a family background in GM Holden and a love of cars, a mechanical apprenticeship was not a stretch for Andrew, although he completed 18 months at university before realising it was not for him.

“Originally I wanted to work for Holden, but after they closed in 2016 I needed another plan. Now I’m starting my third year I am half-way through, and I would look at doing auto-electrical training as well. I’m already doing some of that replacing sensors etc., when doing the engine rebuilds,” he says.

Andrew says he has learned a lot during the apprenticeship and has been given responsibility for rebuilds not only on engines but differentials as well.

“I've been very lucky to get this opportunity to rebuild engines. My team leader does a fantastic job giving me different work so I can learn. Rebuilding the diff was really good. I spent time understand how it works, so in the future I can know how to diagnose problems as well. Diagnosis is going to be part of whatever you do down the road.

“The scan tools set you off in the right direction, but then you have to work through a whole checklist of things, you have to try to visualise the truck in your head as it is working properly, and then you think, ‘what are the things that could cause this to happen?’ Then working through the list, you will diagnose the problem,” he says.

“One of the benefits of rebuilding the engines is that in my head, I can visualize the engine components and how they interact, so in the future, when I get to do more diagnostic jobs, I can visualize what's going on.

“I love my job. Every day I'm excited,” Andrew says. “Even on the weekend. On Sunday I was thinking that I'm so looking forward to this week. My Dad says I am lucky. He says not many people in their lives get to have that joy.”