Crown rider forklift wins design award
New Bremen, OH, United States

Crown Equipment Corp’s design centre and Design Central Inc of Columbus, Ohio have won a gold International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) for Crown’s RC 5500 rider counterbalance forklift.

In ergonomically designing the stand-up forklift, New Bremen-based Crown engineers visited more than 50 customer locations and carefully studied the behaviour of operators getting on and off the truck and manoeuvring the vehicle around a warehouse while managing loads. To accommodate ingress and egress requirements in a loading dock environment, the RC 5500 has a flexible side-stance operator compartment.

“Fresh thinking and new technology were applied to the development of the RC 5500,” says Mike Gallagher, Crown vice president, design centre.

“The RC 5500 shows Crown's dedicated commitment to building lift trucks with the user in the centre of the development process,” says Sudhir Bhatia, award juror and a partner of Mosaic Co of Plymouth, Minnesota, a maker of phosphate and potash crop nutrients.

“There isn’t a detail overlooked,” says another IDEA juror, Andrew Valentine, a student at Virginia Polytechnic University and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.

The RC 5500 is capable of transporting palletised loads weighing up to 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg). The truck can unload trailers, transport goods internally and externally and handle stacking up to 20 feet (6 metres) with a Triplex mast or up to 22 feet (6.6 metres) with a Quad mast.

The design reduced part count by 20% versus a comparable earlier forklift model, and several RC 5500 components easily separate for reuse or recycling. These include the steel, plastics, hydraulic fluids and lead-acid batteries. Steel accounts for about 90% of the RC 5500’s weight.

The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), based in Dulles, Virginia, and BusinessWeek magazine co-sponsor the IDEA competition, which drew 1,517 entries from 33 countries. Organisers will present 35 gold, 77 silver and 93 bronze awards at a 13 September ceremony during the IDSA Polar Opposites national conference in Phoenix, Arizona. The winners were announced 18 July.

Crown has won nine IDEAs. In recent IDEA competitions, Crown received a 2007 gold for the ST 3000, SX 3000 and WF 3000 family of electric walk-behind forklifts , a 2006 silver for its TSP 6000 turret stockpicker, a 2004 silver for its PE 4000 series end-control pallet truck, a 2003 gold for its FC 4000 four-wheel sit-down counterbalanced electric truck and a 1999 gold for its Wave Work assist vehicle.

Separately, in December, the RC 5500 was recognized with a Good Design Award in a 2007 global competition organized by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies.

Crown introduced the forklift in March 2007 with pricing of USD24,870-32,770.

Forklift designs recognised
Essen, Germany

A number of forklift products were recognised at the 2008 Red Dot design awards, announced recently.

While Rocla’s honourable mention in the product design category for its h2 tiller arm for warehouse truck has been previously reported, other makers were also honoured.

Still managed two accolades – a Red Dot award for its SU 20 electric low-lift truck and another for its FM series of mast forklift trucks.

Judges noted that the SU 20 is able to pick up commercially available pallets in transverse and longitudinal directions. An ergonomically designed driver's platform ensures comfort. The chassis of the SU 20 creates space in the driver's seat area and good access for service purposes.

The FM series, meanwhile, was cited for its design, comfort and functionality which were likened to the “more comfortable equipment of a passenger car”.

Linde got a Red Dot for the 396 series forklift. Besides featuring numerous innovations in terms of construction and technology, the design has paid special attention to the ergonomics of the driver cabin, including the access and the exit, according to judges.

Crown’s WF3000 Series stacker got a Red Dot, having achieved the design objective of creating a very robust, compact and manoeuvrable truck that is easy to use, friendly and inviting as well. The rounded design of the hydro-formed and arched power unit cover, combined with the flowing lines of the lower unit, communicates a sense of strength as well as friendliness, the citation says.

With more than 8,000 submissions from 60 countries, the international Red Dot design awards rank among the largest and most renowned design competitions in the world.

CONEXPO Asia 2009 detailed
Beijing

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) has announced the next CONEXPO Asia exhibition will be held November 16-19, 2009 at the Chinese Import and Export Fair (CIEF) at the Pazhou Complex in Guangzhou, China.

CONEXPO Asia will include working equipment demonstrations, extensive industry-focused education sessions and co-located industry meetings and events.

The last CONEXPO Asia was held at the Guangzhou facility, home to the internationally renowned Canton Fair in 2007. CONEXPO Asia 2009 will be able to take advantage of the exposition centre’s recent expansion, which includes additional indoor and outdoor exhibit space as well as new meeting and function rooms.

CONEXPO Asia 2007 more than doubled in size compared to the inaugural show held in 2006, in terms of exhibit space and number of attendees. The 2007 show had 28,000 visitors from 115 countries, compared to the 2006 event’s 13,000 attendees from 75 countries.

Show manager Petra Kaiser expects the growth curve to continue next year: “We will build upon the success of the previous CONEXPO Asia events to bring the best of the region and the world direct to the China and Asia-Pacific marketplace,” she says. “With the improved facility, we can continue to expand the opportunities for industry knowledge-sharing in a convenient and first-class location for the worldwide marketplace.”

AEM initiated CONEXPO Asia to provide a China-based exhibition that is run by the industry, for the benefit of the industry. AEM has been active in China for more than 10 years, helping to advance industry achievements in areas including safety, standards, operator training and market data. The show is organized by the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products (CCCME).

Nominations close on September 30, 2008 and nomination forms are available on the website.

Meanwhile, the count-down has begun for the second Annual TPM Asia Conference in China.

The most pressing issues affecting container trade and logistics in the Europe-Asia, trans-Pacific and intra-Asia markets — from an Asian perspective — will be covered on September 17 and 18 at this event which will take place at the InterContinental Shenzhen Hotel in Shenzhen, China.

The conference comes as container trade throughout Asia continues to grow exponentially, raising many complex challenges for shippers, carriers, 3PLs, terminals and other industry professionals.

For more information on the conference, visit: www.joc.com.

Action Storage chooses Bendi
Redditch, United Kingdom

When a Milton Keynes racking company had to change its own racking system, it turned to Redditch-based Translift Bendi.

Buoyed by unexpected growth, Action Storage was faced with either moving to larger premises or finding additional off-site space. Instead, it opted to practice what it preaches and transformed its warehouse by rearranging its racking and shelving within its existing storage area.

The redesign provided an opportunity to re-evaluate Action Storage’s forklift usage. The company had been using two different types of forklift: a conventional counterbalance truck for pallets and an old, rented, four-way reach truck for long loads, which had reached the end of its useful life.

Faced with narrower aisles, the company rejected a dedicated, very narrow aisle (VNA) truck for its pallets, with MD Tom Brialey explaining that there would have been the additional cost of wire or rail guidance and a space penalty because such trucks need ample manoeuvring space at aisle ends. They are also cumbersomely slow, costly to buy and run, entirely unsuited to outdoor work and difficult to move to other premises when business conditions change.

Instead, Action Storage selected a single Translift Bendi sideloader. This equipment allows support of 5-metre lengths of steel on decks either side of the truck and its forks, which swivel 180 degrees independently of its two, close-coupled front steering wheels. This ability is a great advantage over conventional sideloaders, which can load only on one side of the truck and so mean that they must egress and ingress the aisles each time if they want to access loads on the opposite side of the aisle.

Another comforting factor swinging the contract in Translift’s favour was its well-established, nationwide network of service engineers.

Action Storage has three distinct storage areas for its 1,500 SKUs range. These include a 30-metre run of cantilever racking for its long sections of steel, decked-out adjustable pallet racking for conventional pallets, and a shelving area on ground floor and mezzanine for staff and student lockers.

By reducing the cantilever racking aisle width to 2.5 metres (8.2 feet) and the pallet racking aisles to 2 metres (6.5 feet), the company gained an extra 125 pallet positions, or a 25% increase, and the right choice of articulating truck also saved the cost of an extra forklift.

“If you really want to look at the payback, just look at how much it costs to move buildings,” says Brialey. “This truck will have comfortably paid for itself within a year,” he says.

Equipped with flashing light and reversing beeper, the Bendi sideloader can lift 900 kg (1,984 lb) to 6 metres (19.6 feet) at 600 mm (2 foot) load centres. All three Bendi-trained drivers use paper pick lists and are delighted with the truck’s driving ease. When the warranty expires next year, the company will take out a comprehensive truck maintenance scheme.

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