OEM INTERVIEW
been testing this on thousands of units
across a range of customers, and we’re
currently analyzing the value that this
service has to them.
Step three is to automate and
integrate. That’s about teaching our
retail network how to use the data and
what to do with it, and if you want to
use a cloud network it has to be
automated. That’s where we are now.
What problems can connectivity
help address?
The big thing we’re trying to fix is
unscheduled downtime. And that’s the
biggest opportunity for our customers,
because that can clearly cause havoc for
them. A lift-truck is an industrial
vehicle – you have to grease the
bearings and make adjustments. It’s as
heavy as four or five cars and has big
batteries. When it goes down
unexpectedly it causes big problems.
The value in Connected Service comes
from keeping assets healthy and on the
move. Customers are becoming leaner
too, and the more fleet managementfocused
a customer is, the more valuable
connected service becomes to them.
How on-board are your customers?
We’re finding that some customers are
absolutely dialled in. It depends on
their business. For some downtime is
less of an issue, but for others it’s
hugely valuable for us to know before
something fails. Again, the leaner they
are, the more valuable uptime is.
Some customers are even asking us to
guarantee uptime.
Are there technical
challenges?
Another issue we’ve had in
the past is a result of the
nature of the equipment
we produce. With other
OEMs their products
work outdoors, whereas
ours work indoors, where
you can have issues with
cellular networks. This was especially
true in the early stages. Fortunately,
technology moves on all around us
and those issues are now rare.
Downtime versus uptime is clearly
an important consideration for your
customers. What are the other
benefits of your Connected Service?
Customers don’t want to call us for
service – they want us to call them. It
goes back to dealing with an issue
before that red wrench light comes on.
It’s not easy to do because you’re
predicting different failures, and what
might happen, and it comes down to
digging deep into our maintenance
records. Those come from sensors on
the trucks themselves and from our
own maintenance history.
One strategic advantage Crown has
is that we own some of our retail
service network. Those retailers are
embedded, so we have instant access
to all the maintenance and operations
data. That makes life a lot easier when
it comes to compiling and analyzing
records for predictive service.
If you come back to the car
analogy, you have your automobile
Advanced Lift-48 truck Technology International 2019