JCB, Genie and Point Of Rental Take Top Prizes in Innovative Product Award
Once again a record number of companies participated in RER’s annual Innovative Product Award, our 16th year of celebrating many of the most innovative products to be manufactured in the past year and marketed to the equipment rental industry. A panel of more than a dozen rental company owners and operators and a few other industry participants participated in the voting.
Category winners included Atlas Copco (compressors and air tools); Point of Rental Software (computer software); Toro (concrete-working equipment); Pengo (cutting and drilling equipment); JCB (earthmoving); Perkins (engines/power sourcing); Makinex (generators); Genie (lifts); Magni (lifts); Lind Equipment (light towers); JLG (material handling); Airtow Trailers (miscellaneous); Hilti (power tools); and Wynne Systems and JLG (technology enhancements).
All of these products and the honorable mentions deserve recognition and all will be profiled in RER in the coming months. But this month’s special focus will go to three companies that won the top prizes by the votes of the panel of judges.
The Gold Award goes to JCB for the Teleskid, a unique machine that combines a skid-steer loader or compact track loader with a telehandler. The Silver Award goes to Genie for its Genie SX-135XC Boom, with its extra capacity platform holding up to 1,000 pounds, with an extending jib with 90 feet of outreach. And the Bronze Award goes to Point of Rental Software for its Inspection App, which automates the inspection, maintenance, and service processes, all from a mobile device. From off rental to ready to rent, the Inspection App tracks each step and provides insight that saves time and money.
Let’s take a closer look at the top award winners.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.