MICHAEL DONLEVY, IVT INTERNATIONAL
Better
connected
CROWN EQUIPMENT IS NOW OFFERING ADVANCED CONNECTIVITY THAT
MEANS ITS LIFT-TRUCKS CAN REPORT PROBLEMS, HELP ENGINEERS TO PLAN
MAINTENANCE AND GIVE WAREHOUSE MANAGERS DATA TO IMPROVE EFFICIENCY.
CROWN VICE PRESIDENT CRAIG BRUNS EXPLAINS HOW IT WORKS
Craig Bruns is well versed in the
intricacies of connectivity. The
vice-president of customer support at
Crown Equipment has been working
on a Connected Service strategy for
several years now, and is excited at the
prospect of seeing the company’s work
come to fruition over the
coming months.
This is an
opportunity for Crown – the world’s
fifth-largest manufacturer of industrial
forklift trucks – and its dealer network
to minimize downtime, reduce costs
for its customers and establish new
practices in the service sector. Bruns
explains how…
Connected Service is a big part
of Crown Equipment’s strategy.
What are its roots?
We’re on a journey like many other
OEMs to connect and provide
innovative service to our customers.
Connected Service has been a
strategic priority for many years, and
we’ve made excellent progress in
collaboration with our customers. I’ve
been head of service for 10 years and
have been with Crown for 24 years,
and it’s been interesting to see the
changes in our products over that
time, and to have spent that time
benchmarking other industrial
Advanced Lift-46 truck Technology International 2019
products around the world
against the evolving needs
of our customers.
What stage in the process is the
company at?
When we first developed our Internet
of Things (IoT) service strategy, we
plotted a multi-step process to
introduce connected services.
The first step was to connect as
many lift-trucks and assets as possible.
That was challenging in itself, but
through our wireless/cellular InfoLink
fleet management system we’ve been
able to connect and record all the
data we need.
The next step was to monitor and
analyze that data, and that’s where
Connected Service really comes into
play. It’s not predictive – yet – but it
does allow for proactive maintenance.
We use historical data to help
diagnose the potential cause of an
issue before the technician arrives on
site. We can also use that data to
understand equipment operating
trends and to schedule service and
maintenance to anticipate and
eliminate potential issues.
Think about when the red wrench
light comes on in your car. You call your
local dealer or garage and take it in for
the relevant service. But we’re now in a
position where the lift-truck is telling us
it’s not healthy – so we’re the ones
seeing the wrench light at our end – and
we are proactively calling the customers
because we know something is wrong.
We’re pretty excited about that. We’ve