All the best from Texas: Wednesday morning, Oct. 17, at IFAI Expo led off with lists of winners for the year, including the most popular products on the show floor. The seventh annual Show Stopper competition was designed to showcase the best of the best in the industry, from fabrics, equipment and chemicals to services and end products.

Designed to recognize the most popular new products each year from our exhibitors, the Show Stopper Awards acknowledge the newest, most innovative, useful and exciting, effective, efficient and economical entries, as well as the most environmentally sound products at the show. Entries were submitted by exhibitors and displayed on the show floor, with winners selected by a committee of industry experts.

And the winners are:

DITF German Institutes for Textile & Fiber Research took the lead in the Chemicals, Coatings & Compounds category, for their textile-based sensors using electro-conductive inks and pastes, basic for the manufacturing of inexpensive smart textiles.

Glidewear by Tamarack Habilitation Technologies won in the End Products category, with the MIPS-E3 Glidewear Liner for brain protection. MIPS, a brain safety technology company, is incorporating GlideWear in a new product designed to protect athletes wearing hard-shell helmets. The multi-directional stretch, low-friction fabric has two layers that glide against each other, absorbing harmful friction and shear.

Autometrix Inc. was the winner in the Equipment & Tools category, for the Templates for “just in time” manufacturing. For companies that offer a variety of sizes or dimensions for their custom or semi-custom products, Templates provides a method to generate new patterns for each product in any size, greatly reducing inventory costs.

Lark International took the prize in the Fabrics, Fibers & Film category, for Solar Clear Vinyl, which is both FR and cold-crack resistant up to -30°(F), as well as mildew resistant and heat sealable.

SUREFAS won in the category of Hardware, Findings & Accessories with the CAF-COMPO screw-stud, a composite self-tapping screw-stud that can be used in fiberglass, wood and other composites. The stud is the lower part of a snap or ring-spring press fastener system that will fit any regular ring-spring socket.

Hohenstein was the winner in the category Services to Manufacturers, with the HOSYcan compression testing device that allows for accurate compression measurements during movement and measures the interaction between different materials.

A list of all the 2018 Show Stopper entries was printed in the September 2018 Specialty Fabrics Review, and each entry can be viewed online at https://ifaiexpo.com/show-stoppers. More information about this year’s winners will be included in the December 2018 issue of Specialty Fabrics Review, as part of the coverage of IFAI Expo 2018 in Dallas, Texas.