Innovative Product Awards 2016: Category Winners

As we revealed in the December 2016 issue of RER, the top prizes in the 2016 Innovative Product Award competition came from some unexpected sources. 

The Gold Award went to Redondo Beach, Calif.-based Makinex – a company with roots in the Australian “hire” industry -- for its Powered Hand Truck PHT-140, a small hand truck that can make safely lifting some larger machines a simple one-person, a machine that can be rented to customers and used by rental companies around the yard and shop. The Silver Award went to United Academy, part of the world’s largest equipment rental company United Rentals, for its aerial work platform virtual reality simulator, a technology once viewed as improbably futuristic that now furthers the education of safety techniques on AWPs. And the Bronze Award goes to one of the rental industry’s most popular suppliers and no stranger to Innovative Product Award plaques Genie Industries for its Z-60/37FE and DC boomlifts in which the same machine can go from full electric to hybrid to direct current with a flip of the switch.

While these three products were the top three vote-getters among the dozen rental industry IPA judges, there were eight other category winners, some of which were neck and neck with the three top vote-getters, falling a point or a few points short in the balloting.

The three top winners won in the material-handling, technology enhancements and lifts category. There are nine other category winners, presented here. So let’s take a look at some more outstanding products, which are likely to be part of many a rental inventory in the near future, if they aren’t already.