Crown product/training centre in Feldkirchen, Germany

Crown Equipment Corp is moving its European headquarters, constructing additional facilities and establishing a new logistics centre.

"Although the world market for forklifts declined slightly in 2012, we were able to further expand our business in the region" for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, says Ken Dufford, Crown's vice president for Europe. "This can be attributed to the fact that in the continuing difficult economic situation, customers are constantly looking for ways to cut costs."

Crown plans by year's end to relocate its European headquarters from Munich to Feldkirchen, Germany, where the company has acquired a developed commercial site. Feldkirchen is about 10 km (6 mi.) east of Crown's current European headquarters.

Crown is projecting continued steady growth for its business in Europe.

Since last year, the company has expanded its presence in Europe, opening service and distribution centres in Madrid (Spain), Vienna (Austria) and Milan (Italy).

For more production capability and vertical integration, Crown is constructing a production facility and a three-story office building on a newly acquired portion of an industrial and commercial estate in Roding, Germany. Crown anticipates completing construction in mid-2014.

In its existing Roding site, Crown began manufacturing products, initially for hand pallet trucks and components, in 1986.

Now, Crown is consolidating all aspects of its European forklift production through expansion of the Roding site, about 150 km (93 mi.) north of Munich.

The new logistics centre for parts and service is in Pliening, about 17 km. (10 mi.) north east of Munich, and became operational in October.

With this new logistics centre, Crown says it is tripling its available space in Europe for the parts and service functions.

From the Pliening site, the company can make overnight deliveries within its European core markets direct to remotely stationed service engineers or to final customers.

"With these three new investments, we are creating the urgently needed capacities to meet the growing needs of our customers for viable solutions designed to advance productivity and lower costs," Dufford says.

In addition to Roding and the firm's New Bremen, OH, United States corporate headquarters location, Crown has manufacturing facilities in Kinston, North Carolina; Greencastle and New Castle, Indiana; and Suzhou, China.