Ring Power Utility Equipment rolled out a new custom product for Florida Power and Light recently. The Genie Z-45 Substation Utility Boom was designed by Terex and Genie specifically for substation work.



“This has been a project that Terex, Genie, Ring Power and Florida Power & Light have been working on for quite some time now,” said South Florida account manager Bennett Ruffin. “With the Genie Z-45 SUB, which was purposely designed by Terex and Genie for substation work, it has specific features like the fiberglass jib sections, fiberglass platform and isolated upper controls built in to isolate the boom tip from the chassis ground.”



The Z-45 was designed in response to a need by FPL to increase safety with substation work. Traditionally, the practice of using all steel aerial work platforms required an extensive bonding process that needed to be done to isolate the boom tip from the chassis ground. Without the bonding process, or if it’s done incorrectly, the users are exposed to a serious shock risk due to the inherent differences in potential between the boom tip and chassis ground.



This project began picking up steam with a meeting at ICUEE back in October 2019. After that meeting, the Ring Power team scheduled a trip to Redmond, WA for a factory tour of Genie’s facility with FPL to go over the project timeline that Terex and Genie had put together. It also gave the team a chance to get feedback from FPL’s substation user group regarding the platform design for the unit.



“The success of this project is the result of a huge collaborative effort between all stakeholders involved,” Bennett said.



Despite the multitude of setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Terex and Genie team was able to meet their major project timeline milestones and complete the project on time.



Ring Power demoed the Z-45 SUB at the Pompano branch on November 19 and was a huge success. Even though special precautions had to be taken with Terex/Genie video conferencing in to keep in-person attendance to a minimum to allow for social distancing, the team was able to effectively demonstrate the key features and benefits of the Z-45 SUB to both of FPL’s upper management and substation user group.



“We have received nothing but positive feedback from their team and they truly believe this product is an industry game changer for standard substation safe work practices moving forward,” Bennett said. “I think it’s safe to say the Genie Z-45 SUB met and exceeded their expectations.”

Service Technicians, parts employees and build shop technicians will soon begin seeing detailed instructions for applying our branding to new equipment with the rollout of the Utility Equipment division’s decal branding standard operating procedures.



The goal of these decal SOPs is to give detailed instructions on the exact decal size and placement for every piece of equipment we sell or rent.



The rollout of the decal SOP will happen in phases. The first phase will include the most common pieces such as the TC55, C4047, LT40, TM125 and Spiradrill hydraulic diggers. Each phase after will add new SOPs for less common equipment until all equipment in our fleet is covered.



The format of the SOP will be a one-page flyer with photos of the unit from each angle showing placement of the decals along with size of the decal needed in each location.



Phase one of the decal branding SOP is tentatively scheduled for the end of December 2020.