Crown makes heavy investment

Crown is expanding its activities in Europe with three infrastructure investments in Germany intended to enhance customer service throughout Europe, while Crown’s range of innovative new products and systems are designed to help customers reduce their total cost of ownership.

A high level of innovation is an important factor for continued growth. In 2012 alone, Crown launched nine new products, including the Crown ESR 5200 reach trucks, ES 4000 and ET 4000 pallet stacker series and the SC 5300 Series three-wheel counterbalanced truck.

Steve Stewart, Crown’s UK Managing Director, explains: "In 2013 the emphasis was on intelligent technology – advancements in features and systems aimed at enhancing user benefits in terms of efficiency and reduced cost of ownership.”

In a development aimed at giving its customers more flexibility and capabilities for the management of their forklift fleet and operators, Crown recently moved its Crown InfoLink fleet management system to the Cloud. 

Hosted by Crown, InfoLink, is a part of the Crown Insite Productivity Suite, which enables customers to monitor and manage the efficient use of their forklift fleet and total operations. It delivers actionable data including information such as battery usage, impact history, truck utilisation, safety compliance, service needs and more, through a user-friendly interface.

Crown’s InfoLink was awarded the IFOY Award 2013 in the "Forklift Truck Solutions” category for revolutionising materials handling technology for UK office supplies wholesaler, Spicers, by reducing maintenance and repair costs by 90%. 

Making low-level order picking more productive

With QuickPick Remote, Crown has introduced a new order picking technology that significantly improves on traditional order picking processes. The system provides an intuitive remote control device that simplifies the working processes involved in low-level order picking whilst improving productivity. 

"Operators no longer have to return to the truck’s operator platform to move to the next picking location as they can move the order picker forward at the touch of a button while keeping both hands free,” Stewart explains.

When picking orders from the lowest racking level, operators normally spend an average of 75% of their time on foot, much of it backtracking. Crown’s QuickPick Remote offers major opportunities to cut time, effort and costs by drastically reducing how often the operators must return to the operator platform.

"It also means they no longer have to walk as far, or in as many different directions. This significantly reduces the amount of time required to fulfil each pick order and increases productivity over the order picking process by 10% on average with gains in the aisle of up to 25%.”

Crown’s QuickPick Remote was awarded "Best Product 2013” at last year’s LogiMAT trade fair in Germany.

Infrastructure

"Crown is addressing needs associated with its continued steady growth in Europe with a clear focus on meeting the needs and requirements of its customers,” says Stewart.

These include a New European Headquarters. Crown is moving its European headquarters from Munich to a nearby location in Feldkirchen, where the company has acquired a developed commercial site. This is the continuation of an expansion programme in Europe over the past two years, which has seen the opening of new service and distribution centres in Spain (Madrid), Austria (Vienna) and Italy (Milan).

The company is also expanding its production facilities. What began in Roding, Bavaria in 1986 as a production site for hand pallet trucks and components now consolidates Crown’s entire European forklift production for the EMEA region. For continued European expansion, the company is currently constructing a production hall and a two-storey office building on a new industrial and commercial estate in Roding, scheduled for completion in mid-2014.

Finally, Crown has unveiled a new parts and service centre. The logistics centre at Pliening, also near Munich, has tripled the company’s capacity to supply parts and service items throughout the EMEA region. From Pliening, the company delivers to its’ network throughout the EMEA region with many European markets receiving overnight deliveries direct to the service engineers’ vehicles or to end user sites.

"In making these, and other, significant investments, Crown’s focus going into 2014 and beyond remains relentlessly customer-oriented,” says Stewart. "All our efforts are focused on the needs of our customers and directed at serving them better through improved productivity and reduced cost of ownership – backed up with exceptional levels of service support and parts availability. Robust products, intelligent technology, and continued investment are key factors in our confidence for meeting our customers’ future needs.”