IAPA Shortlist: United in excellence

There has been a fantastic response to this year’s International Awards for Powered Access (IAPA), with well over 100 entries across the 12 categories in the 2017 awards.

Jointly organised by Access International and the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF), the IAPAs celebrate best practice and excellence in the powered access industry and regularly attract up to 500 attendees from the global industry.

This year will not be an exception, and we would like to thank all the companies and individuals that sent in entries. As ever, the entries received were of the highest quality, therefore narrowing down the shortlist for each category was a difficult task for the five judges. If you did not make it on to the shortlist this year, please enter again for the 2018.

For all those football enthusiasts, we also have an exciting venue for the awards and IPAF Summit - which takes place on the same day – at the Hilton London Wembley hotel. Those attending the awards and summit can also enjoy the IPAF Networking event, taking place the evening before (03 April) in the Pitch View Room at Wembley Stadium, then, on 05 April, why not take part in the site visit around Wembley Stadium itself.

We hope you can make it along to this great annual industry event. In the meanwhile, take a look through the shortlisted entries this year.

2017 IAPAs shortlist

Access Rental

Company of the Year

AFI, UK

The rental company introduced an industry-leading IT initiative this year to keep customers informed at every stage of their AFI machine hire. It further developed its work at height training operations, recruited more apprentices and became the first powered access company to gain the UK Institute of Customer Service’s ServiceMark accreditation.

Nationwide, UK

Apart from tackling industry concerns of falling objects, manual handling and entrapment at height, the company evolved its intelligent secondary guarding system for use on scissors and developed and introduced a new user-friendly dashboard for a complete overview on all aspects of powered access being used on site.

Riwal, the Netherlands

‘The Riwal Way’ has seen the company implement continuous improvement reviews, including auditing every depot at least once during 2016 with clear action plans and expansion beyond the operational and financial key performance indicators.

Shanghai Horizon, China

In four years, Horizon has been growing fast with fleet size growth of 80% last year, and contracts increasing by 90%. Horizon Equipment has established three MRO centres and 41 branches in China, covering most of the key cities and forming a network reaching the whole nation. Over 10000 rental and construction projects have been contracted.

Contribution to Safe Working at Height

EIDE - Embragatges i Derivats, Spain

The company’s FPC-Overspeed safety brake for rack and pinion devices has an automatic reset. The procedure to reset the brake consists of raising the elevator a few centimetres. Then the brake is operative again without any manipulation.

JLG, USA

Its SkyGuard enhanced control panel protection system is now standard across the JLG portfolio of boom lifts in all global markets. Judges were also impressed with the SkyGuard system, which temporarily reverses or undoes most functions that were in use when the system was activated.

Modern Access & Scaffolding,

Hong Kong

During a time when only scaffolding was the norm for access at height, rental company Modern introduced a range of bridge-over products to Hong Kong and continues to provide working at height initiatives.

Power Towers, UK

With the sale of more than 15000 units and the development of its range of low level access products, Power Towers has been a significant leader in safety at this height. The company’s ongoing developments continue to build on this success.

IAPA Innovative

Technology Prize

Haulotte, France – Activ’Lighting System Safe Load

The boom is equipped with several LEDs to light up key places on and around the boom, increasing safety and productivity during loading and unloading phases. Haulotte is first to implement such an advanced lighting system as standard on booms.

Nationwide Platforms, UK – SkySiren PCS

Officially launched SkySiren PCS (Pre-Crush Sensing) for boom lifts in 2016, following trials throughout 2015. Incorporating a traffic light warning system, SkySiren PCS is able to notify operators of varying levels of danger.

Serious Labs, Canada – VRSL: AWP Trainer

A virtual reality training simulator that gives trainees the complete experience of operating aerial lift equipment. It leverages cutting edge physical simulation, low latency virtual reality, and physical motion previously only available in the military or aerospace industries.

IPAF Training Centre of the Year

DK Rental, Belgium

Successfully promoting IPAF and secondary guarding through safety exhibitions in Belgium has been just one of its achievements, as well as cooperating with the Belgium Health and safety Executive (HSE) to create standards for training materials.

Manlift, UAE

Training is delivered in different languages to reflect the nationalities of attendees.

These include Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Sinhalese and Tamil. In 2016 the number

of trained individuals grew by 35% compared to 2015.

Mills, Brazil

In 2016 the Mills training centre presented at the Safe Work at Height Council of Engineering, participated in an important safety event for a multinational company in the steel industry and trained a group of regional safety officials. It kept up this significantly in a very difficult market environment.

IPAF Training

Instructor of the Year

Anderson Puff, Mills, Brazil

In 2016 Mr Puff participated in 35% of all training at Brazil-based Mills, and promoted training nationally to state authorities as well as promoting safe working at height to major companies and helping them with their current standards.

Fernando SErafim, Transgrua, Portugal

Mr Serafim is believed to be Portugal’s most prolific IPAF trainer, as well as developing the IPAF Safety Kit package exclusive to his employing company Transgrua and specialising in training operators who will be working abroad.

Lukas Gerber, Kompetenzzentrum für Arbeitssicherheit, Switzerland

Mr Gerber is able to identify interesting and positive approaches from other fields of education that he is involved in and to adapt them to IPAF training courses. All importantly he believes training should be fun, which has a major impact on his success.

Powered Access Pioneer

Alo Group, Chile

In 2005, Alo Rental joined IPAF as its first member in South America. Since then, the company and its founder Sandra Franco has significantly developed the market in Chile and introduced a range of initiatives in the past year.

Shanghai Horizon, China

China’s biggest rental company has grown since it originally started in 2012, and has been a key player in developing the rental model in the country over the last 12 months. It has ambitious plans for the market in the near future.

Time International, Denmark

This company has redefined the market for van mounted access platforms in Europe. In 2016 it marked a milestone with the 20000th delivery of one of its Versalift van mounts to German company Swarco. It also reintroduced Time Versalift with a new facility in France during the year.

Product of the Year – Mast climbers/hoists

Alimak Hek, Sweden – Mammoth Triplex

The 12.4 tonne system consists of three construction hoist cars on a twin mast tower. In the middle of the two mast towers is one large goods hoist car and on the outer sides of the towers are two high speed passenger hoist cars.

Maber, Italy – MB A 2200/250

This construction hoist has a capacity of 2.2 tonnes with speeds of up to 70m/min, yet is designed for easy transport, erection and maintenance to meet the demands of rental companies for big hoists.

Scanclimber, Finland – All Reach Extension (ARE)

As a ‘freely’ moving diagonal platform, the extension is attached on the main platform. ARE is able to slide and slew, and can slide in and out more than 5 m from the main platform, it also slides along the platform and additionally slews by 90 degrees.

Product of the Year – Self propelled above 20ft

ATN, France – Piaf 1010

Unique to the market, with its non-marking tracks this vertical mast is able to operate on all types of ground, inside and outside. The electric PIAF 1010 has a working height of 10.05m and 3.35m outreach and a low ground pressure of 0.7kg/cm².

Genie, USA – SX-135 XC

The new Genie boom lift goes where no boom has gone before, boasting extra capacity, expanded outreach and exceptional range of motion, it is the first in a new generation of Xtra Capacity (XC) booms designed to meet today’s widespread need for increasingly heavy loads.

JLG, USA – 1500AJP

The world’s biggest articulated boom has an outstanding work envelope, with up-and-over height of 18.3 m, a working outreach of 23.5 m and platform capacity of 270 kg unrestricted and 450 kg restricted – available throughout the vast majority of the machine’s working area.

Teupen, Germany – Puma 42GTX

With the combination of walking all terrain Menzi Muck excavator chassis with a 40 m LEO40GTX boom, the centre of gravity moves freely and is always between the four wheels, thus ensuring maximum safety.

Product of the Year – Vehicle/trailer mounted

CTE, Italy – B-Lift 17E

This 3.5 tonne, battery-powered truck mounted telescopic platform reaches 16.6 m of working height, 11.3 m of outreach, 250 kg of capacity and has a more than 500Ah battery that guarantees 1.5 hours of continuous work. Once drained, it recharges with PTO or with electric power in eight hours maximum.

Palfinger Platforms, Germany – P750

This 75m working height machine has a total weight, with truck, well below 32 tonnes (31.8 tonnes). So it can be mounted on a 32 tonne chassis, providing the acquisition costs, operating costs and efficiency found with its status of a standard truck. Therefore, route restrictions or accompanying vehicles are not an issue.

Ruthmann, Germany – T 510 HF

Offers a 51 m working height on two axles, 18 tonne chassis. Until now, these capabilities had only been available on a three-axle chassis. Even when a customer chooses the all-wheel drive version, the maximum 51m working height does not exceed the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) or the maximum height limit.

Project of the Year

Mills, Brazil

The company developed a new market using aerial work platforms in Latin America to substitute the native processes used for coconut harvesting. Five Genie Z45 RT 4 x 4 platforms were used, replacing belts traditionally used to climb the trees.

RCB, Brazil

Latam, as the official Airlines of the Rio 2016 Paralympic games, needed a safer, faster and simple way to handle the wheelchairs from the main cabin to the airplane storage and vice-versa. Together with LATAM Brazil Ground Handling, its customised a Skyjack SJIII 4632 fitted the task.

Scanclimber, Finland

Taurus SC6000 mast climbers were used with double floor sliding deck extensions on a long term project to install multilayered, three dimensional and heavy aluminium facade elements on the huge, 90m tall, waste-to-energy plant Amager Bakke in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Smart Platforms Solutions, the Netherlands

For maintenance on Dutch sea-locks, an MSP 860 was modified with a gondola attached, suspended by four cables. Two of them are connected to the traction hoist, the other are safety-cables. The power for the traction hoists are delivered by a generator, which is installed on the machine.

Access Photo of the Year

Winner will be announced at the awards ceremony 

IPAF/Access International Lifetime Achievement Award

Winner will be announced at the awards ceremony

THE judges

The independent and impartial judges made their decisions based on the merit of each entry and were excluded from entering their company for any awards.

The judging panel:

•  Andy Studdert, CEO of US-based NES Rentals, and IPAF president;
•  Eline Oudenbroek, managing director of Holland Lift, based in the Netherlands;
•  Kai Schliephake, managing director of PartnerLift, a Germany-based consortium of access rental companies;
•  Mike Evans, retired access industry veteran in the UK and former winner of the IAPAs Lifetime Achievement Award;
•  Rick Mustillo, founder of Kookaburra Equipment Sales and president of Australia’s Elevating Work Platform Association.
•  Non-voting chair: Euan Youdale, editor of Access International magazine.