Amid several competitors at this year's international Cleaning Show, Kaivac's battery-powered AutoVac system won the top prize for the most innovative product.
 
The trade show was held March 9-12, 2016, in Bucharest, Romania, the sixth-largest city in the European Union and one of Europe's most prosperous cities. Close to 100 European and North American jan/san-related manufacturers exhibited at the event.

"Some of these jan/san manufacturers are the biggest names in the industry," says Marc Ferguson, Kaivac's international business development manager. "We certainly had a lot of competition [for this award] at this show."
 
The battery-powered AutoVac is designed to function like a traditional autoscrubber but at a fraction of the cost.
 
As the AutoVac is rolled over a floor surface, cleaning solution is dispensed onto the floor; a pad behind the machine agitates the floor, releasing soils, which are then vacuumed up.
 
According to Ferguson, tests at the University of Massachusetts concluded that the AutoVac system is actually more effective at removing floor soils than a traditional autoscrubber. "And when you figure that the system costs only about one-sixth that of a traditional scrubber, it's pretty clear why this system won this award."
 
The Cleaning Show is just one of a number of international tradeshows held regularly around the world, adds Ferguson, who attends or exhibits Kaivac products at many of them.
 
They represent the growth of the industry around the world, he says, "And along with this growth, the industry is gaining far more respect, economic success, and appreciation than ever before."