Forklifts, Crown
The BMW Of Forklifts
19/11/07 19:56 Filed in: Industry
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The ultimate lifting machines come from New Bremen,
Ohio.
The tiny town of New Bremen, Ohio (pop.: 3,000) is known for cornfields, the Bicycle Museum of America--and for Crown Equipment, the last privately owned lift truck manufacturer in America. Its sales ($1.7 billion in 2006) have doubled over the past five years. "We have more growth potential than we know what to do with," says Jim F. Dicke III, president, who runs the company with his father, Jim F. Dicke II, chief executive officer and chairman.
Crown's roots go back to 1945. That's when Dicke brothers, Allen, a patent attorney, and Carl, a salesman--plus his son Jim, fresh from military service--started making controls for coal-burning furnaces. The heat regulator business cooled in the late 1940s, and Crown switched to making antenna rotators, which it phased out in 2001. Since the late 1960s, though, its metier has been electric lift trucks.
Materials handling equipment doesn't draw quite the same attention as a social networking site or the lingerie business. But you can't run a warehouse or big box store without pallet trucks and electric forklifts. Crown's lineup ranges from a $400 hand pallet truck to a $75,000 turret stockpicker that can handle up to 3,000 pounds, whip around at 7.5 miles an hour and raise an operator 38 feet off the ground to survey and manipulate inventory. Read More...
The tiny town of New Bremen, Ohio (pop.: 3,000) is known for cornfields, the Bicycle Museum of America--and for Crown Equipment, the last privately owned lift truck manufacturer in America. Its sales ($1.7 billion in 2006) have doubled over the past five years. "We have more growth potential than we know what to do with," says Jim F. Dicke III, president, who runs the company with his father, Jim F. Dicke II, chief executive officer and chairman.
Crown's roots go back to 1945. That's when Dicke brothers, Allen, a patent attorney, and Carl, a salesman--plus his son Jim, fresh from military service--started making controls for coal-burning furnaces. The heat regulator business cooled in the late 1940s, and Crown switched to making antenna rotators, which it phased out in 2001. Since the late 1960s, though, its metier has been electric lift trucks.
Materials handling equipment doesn't draw quite the same attention as a social networking site or the lingerie business. But you can't run a warehouse or big box store without pallet trucks and electric forklifts. Crown's lineup ranges from a $400 hand pallet truck to a $75,000 turret stockpicker that can handle up to 3,000 pounds, whip around at 7.5 miles an hour and raise an operator 38 feet off the ground to survey and manipulate inventory. Read More...
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