Discover how ANA’s Energy Boss revolutionizes power management in numerous industries
A leading supplier of innovative technology air compressor and generator solutions, ANA serves a wide range of industries, including construction, industrial, and equipment rental, as well as utilities, municipalities, and telecom companies. Through the delivery of top-quality equipment, the company ensures reliability, exceptional performance, and minimal noise levels. Notably, ANA is the exclusive North American supplier for Airman mobile generators, air compressors, and MAC3 pneumatic tools. Kevin Day, who serves as COO and Co-Founder of the organization, recounts its early days and evolution.
“In 2017, my two partners, Mike and Alicia, and I founded ANA. The three of us joined forces to make ANA the North American distributor for Airman, a famous brand of air compressors and generators from Niigata, Japan. Established in 1938, Airman entered the North American market in the 1980s and had since worked with a handful of distributors before giving us the opportunity to distribute their products. It had never been able to cement itself in the top third of companies in the North American market, which is something we wanted to change, and a position which we have achieved. 
“Interestingly, I have grown up in this industry, and my godfather founded one of our big competitors, for whom I worked for 17 years. While I was there, I became familiar with the Airman product, and through ANA, I am proud we’ve grown Airman’s position in a short time frame and positioned ourselves as a recognized brand of both air compressors and generators in the North American rental equipment industry. Since our early days, we have experienced a whirlwind of success, becoming a three-time back-to-back Inc. 5000 company, a testament to our tremendous growth over the last seven years,” he expresses.
On-site support
Kevin goes on to describe ANA’s product range and the key services it provides customers to ensure they make the most of their equipment. “When we started the business, one of the things we worked on was developing a unique selling point for our products. As a superior quality product at the top end of the price range, Airman is naturally more expensive than both our air compressors and generators. For Energy Boss, another flagship product, we took the same approach, ensuring it is of the highest quality, which generally means it is not the cheapest. We operate on the principle that when a customer pays that price, they are expecting reliability, which is especially critical in the hire rental industry where equipment downtime is not an option. Therefore, we need to be able to provide parts quickly to customers when issues arise, and we are proud to consistently ship over 92 percent of all parts orders within 24 hours of receiving the order.
“As an equipment distributor and a manufacturer to the hire rental industry, we have a large service support network to ensure that our customers are well-trained and prepared to service equipment themselves. Our extensive training program can be conducted either internally at our own facilities or at our customers’ facilities if they would prefer that. In addition, we have a dedicated parts team that supports our clients after the sale and assists them with a wide range of power applications, helping them understand how to install our product properly for their specific needs. This capability is important because the hire rental industry rents out everything from small water pumps to large 10,000-pound forklifts and heavy machinery, so our customers may not necessarily be experts in using some of our products. Therefore, our ability to support them on-site as necessary is essential to their success,” he enlightens.
Proactive problem solving
Energy Boss, one of ANA’s most renowned products, has been developed as a response to challenges faced by clients across several industries, as Kevin points out: “About five years ago, we found that the generators our customers were using were often severely underutilized. For instance, a 20-kilowatt generator should be run at a minimum of 50 percent of that load since diesel engines are designed to run as hard as possible. However, we found that many of our customers had loads far below the 50 percent rated load, which caused engine issues. We also noticed that our customers had variable loads, ranging from 2-to-18 kilowatts on a 20-kilowatt generator. To address this issue, we developed a product called Smartload, a load bank that adds an artificial resistive load to the generator or engine, allowing it to run at a higher capability and adding 40 percent of the load to it, thereby solving the problem.
“However, by running at a higher load, the generator burns more fuel and produces more carbon emissions. Consequently, we began researching a better solution, which led to the development of Energy Boss, a high-cycle and high-voltage battery system that works in conjunction with a generator to charge the batteries, which then provide power through inverters. When the load is running at 20 percent, for example, the load is run off of the batteries and inverters, and when the batteries get low, the generator turns on and runs at 100 percent of load to recharge them in about 35 minutes, after which the generator turns off again,” he informs.
Energy-efficient innovation
Last year, the success and efficiency of Energy Boss has driven ANA to expand into the telecom industry, where it has proven particularly useful. “The telecom industry faces significant challenges with these variable loads. Mobile cell towers are often used by multiple providers, and most of the time, the towers’ generators run at about 10-to-15 percent of their rated load. However, when operators send a signal to the tower, the load can spike up to 90 percent, requiring all that generator capability. This is where Energy Boss comes in, as the technology is directly transferable to the telecom industry, driving us to venture into this market. So far, we have seen significant success in the North American market with the product and we are currently working with major players such as Verizon, AT&T, Dish, and Boost Mobile, all of whom are utilizing our products,” Kevin concludes.
Through energy-efficient innovations like Energy Boss and a commitment to excellent customer service, ANA empowers its clients to achieve maximum power reliability.