Upside Innovations Recognized for Operational Excellence

For commercial and industrial customers specifying Upside canopies, stairs, and ramps, this recognition is independent proof of the manufacturing quality behind every order.

Upside Innovations’ parent company, SixAxis, LLC, has been named 2025 Operational Team of the Year by MiddleGround Capital — the most prestigious portfolio-wide honor presented by the Lexington, KY-based private equity firm. The award benchmarks safety, quality, on-time delivery, gross margin, and labor efficiency across MiddleGround’s roughly 18 companies and 190+ plants. Among all leadership teams in the portfolio, SixAxis posted the highest combined marks.

For facility managers, general contractors, and commercial property teams specifying Upside aluminum canopies, prefabricated stairs, switchback ramps, and ADA-compliant access, the recognition translates into measurable performance on the work you have lined up.

Why this matters to Upside customers

• TRIR: 0.00 vs. an industry standard of 3.10 — built in one of the safest manufacturing environments in the U.S.
• On-time delivery: 97.3% vs. an industry standard near 83% for build-to-order manufacturing. Construction timelines and tenant turnover dates don’t slip because the canopy or ramp didn’t show up.
• 98% domestic sourcing with built-in redundancy — zero raw-material “brown-outs” in several years.

Both production facilities are ISO 14001 and SHARP certified.

The system behind the numbers

Upside products are built inside the SixAxis Production System (SPS) — a proprietary operational playbook built on safety, quality, and morale, with continuous improvement as a company-wide mindset. A mass-customization approach standardizes components across the catalog, compressing lead times without sacrificing customization on canopies, stairs, and ADA-compliant ramps.

Build on it

If you’re planning a commercial canopy install, a prefab metal stair package, an ADA ramp, or a custom architectural aluminum project, you’re ordering from a U.S. manufacturing team just named the gold standard across MiddleGround Capital’s portfolio.