Niches can be important in the equipment rental or any other business. Successful businesses are often run by people who saw a market niche that was not being filled and they went and filled it. You can see examples of it in many businesses.
You can certainly see it in this month’s cover story on Acme Lift and its owner/CEO Woody Weld. The niche is absolutely unique. Acme Lift rents to other rental companies, specializing in big aerial work platforms and telehandlers. Most rental companies don’t want to own 150- or 180-foot boomlifts, or 70,000-pound telehandlers. They are expensive to purchase and unless a rental company expects to rent them regularly, they don’t want to invest such capital.
It all started for Weld back in the 1990s. Phoenix was booming and Weld was running the rental division there for ACM Equipment, with a lot of equipment going out on big jobs such as stadiums and arenas. There was a demand for 120-foot boomlifts, which weren’t easy to find in those days. Weld rented every one he could get and when he wanted more, ACM’s owner said “No! What are we going to do with them in six months when the job is over?”
So Weld tried to re-rent them from somebody but couldn’t find any and there it was, clear as a bell: a niche that wasn’t being filled. There was a need out there but nobody to fill it and soon after Acme Lift was born.
Acme Lift is also a great example of how telematics can and should be utilized. Acme has units rented all over North America. The only way the staff can keep track of them is by telematics. It’s not just knowing the location of the assets and if they are moved beyond the geofence. It’s also knowing when servicing is required or how many hours the machine was actually utilized and knowing it from the comfort of your office. This industry has been a bit slow to adopt telematics, but I predict that will change quickly in the coming years.
Yes, that’s your telehandler heading down Interstate 40 right now, when you thought it was shut down for the evening. It’s on its way to another state, or for some moonlighting at another jobsite. And you don’t even know it.
So please check out our cover story here.
You’ve probably heard and read a lot about Tier 4 over the past few years and you’ll be continuing to hear about it for a while. Equipment manufacturers have been hearing and thinking about it for a whole lot longer and in many ways Tier 4 – and Tier 3 and Interim Tier 4 before it – have dominated R&D laboratories for engine manufacturers as well as makers of generators, earthmoving machines and more for quite some time. And you can bet they are tired of having to devote the majority of their R&D investment and attention to regulatory concerns.
Well, those regulatory concerns haven’t gone away completely, and certainly manufacturers will have to make adjustments to their Tier 4 machines for some time to come. But manufacturers will be able to also devote some more effort to thinking about other ways to improve machines and meet the needs of their customers.
The need to conform to regulatory requirements has led to improvements in fuel economy and will lead to a cleaner environment. But it will be very interesting to see what kind of technological advancements are in store in the coming years. A golden age of technological advancement could be on the horizon. Perhaps development won’t be as dramatic as that, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the pace of innovation quicken in a variety of areas now that R&D staffs don’t have to devote themselves to so many pending regulatory deadlines.
You can get a sneak peak at this ongoing discussion by checking out our interviews with generator manufacturers. One of the predictions for ongoing development in the generator world comes from Todd Howe of Doosan Portable Power who sees significant growth in the telematics realm as generators become more complex. And the exploding oil-and-gas market means units will be bound for some very remote locations. Special packages for the oil-and-gas market are already being developed by generator makers, including special accommodations for cold weather.
Noise is always a concern in the power generation market and generator makers continue to progress in making generators quieter. The growing propane market is another trend. Also developments in fuel economy, which were driven by Tier 4, will continue to be looked at, as will a variety of alternative fuels.
