Intella launched a new line of forklift battery chargers at ProMat 2015 in Chicago. Our long time European charger partner, A.T.I.B Elettronica showed off their newly designed models for the North American market. We’re very excited to be entering the charger business.
Our parent company, VanGent Forklift Parts, has been doing business with ATIB for nearly 10 years with great results. The chargers ATIB sells in Europe are designed for European voltages and standards–a completely new series was introduced for the North American market. If you’re interested in learning more about chargers please call us at 616-796-1288 or explore more here.
On Wednesday, day 3, traffic starts slowing and the energy takes a dip. For future record, Monday and Tuesday are definitely the best days to take in ProMat from an attendee perspective. Some might point out that it’s easier to navigate a show when it’s less busy. Me–I’d prefer to attend when everyone is at peak performance, peak energy, peak excitement. Let’s face it, 4 days of working a show does get tiring!
Below are some photos of things I found interesting to look at during the ProMat show. Let’s start with what is perhaps the most interesting company name.
Interesting name, interesting display…
What better way to demonstrate your product’s lifting capability by lifting another one. Literally!
Finally, on Wednesday night MHI celebrated its 50th anniversary with a cocktail hour and stand up comedy by Frank Caliendo. Frank’s known for his celebrity impersonation of notables such as Morgan Freeman, Bill Clinton, Charles Barkley and many others. He had a great show.
Below photo is from the back of the room, near the bar. We were quite a ways back but the video screens projected pretty well.
And that’s all for the 3rd day ProMat 2015 wrap up!
At Promat 2015 we demonstrated our BlueSpot®Safety Light which has been a hit since we introduced it in 2012. Yep, you read that right. We sold our first blue forklift light in late 2012!
Our model 01291296 features stainless steel hardware and it’s UL listed. It’s IP67 rate which means it is suitable for outdoor wet applications as well as indoor settings.
If you stopped by our booth you would have seen 8 of these in operation– we had LOTS of blue spots on the floor in front of our booth!
In addition to the BlueSpots we displayed, we also displayed a red version of the blue forklift light. Check out the floor in the image below and look at all the different lights. If you look carefully, you’ll see 4 lights mounted on the walls, 2 lights on the Hyster forklift, and 3 more lights on the black counter.
ProMat’s second day, Tuesday March 24, 2015 started with a bang! Doors opened early as there was a huge crowd awaiting in the McCormick Place foyer.
ProMat 2015 featured nearly 500,000 square feet of exhibits. Intella has been at ProMat since the 2011 show and this was definitely the biggest ProMat in as many years.
The ProMat show covers all aspects of material handling. Forklift manufacturer booths are fairly large but fairly straight forward. Most forklift OEMs feature a large number of their models on the floor along with some chairs/bar area.
It’s interesting seeing the new models of forklifts, wondering what the forklifts will looking like after they’ve been used for a number of years and needing replacement forklift parts.
Conveyor and material handling systems companies tend to have the largest, most elaborate booths at ProMat. Here’s a picture of one company’s booth: the operating conveyor runs beneath the 2nd story of the booth.
ProMat is the largest material handling trade show in the USA. It happens every two years, typically in March. Though it’s sometimes been in January, and I can remember a few times it was held over Valentine’s Day so February has been an option as well.
Why early in the year? I don’t really know. I wish it was mid September or early October. Definitely would be better weather in Chicago during those months. I have a feeling that Mccormick Place is booked during those months. MHI, the show organizer is based in North Carolina so I would think they would be motivated towards warm weather. One can hope.
ProMat 2015 was held from Monday, March 23 until Thursday, March 26. Intella’s booth was 4207, towards the front. Below is a picture of our booth on Sunday night. Plastic on floor covers carpet until opening morning. Thanks Alta Equipment for use of Hyster 8,000 pneumatic electric. Definitely would be thinking about electric pneumatic if I was in the market.
Forklift battery chargers from ATIB Italy. Over the week we received great feedback and a ton of interest.
Here’s our booth on Monday morning. Rock and roll ready to go!
On Monday March 23, Chicago was hit with around 4-5 inches of heavy, wet snow. Airports saw multiple delays and traffic at the show was quite dead in the morning. In the afternoon we started hearing stories of attendees who had flights diverted, stuck in traffic and generally had miserable drives to the show. We arrived Sunday (no snow!) so we just had a short cab ride to McCormick Place.
Cool logos on steps going into McCormick. Pity that most people take the escalators and missed this
In late afternoon the snow was already melting. It still was a sloppy mess on the road.