Crown Equipment Corporation continued its design excellence tradition with a Bronze International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) from the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) for Crown’s QuickPick® Remote order picking system.
This year’s win adds to Crown’s growing list of more than 80 major design awards. Over the last 25 years, Crown has earned 22 IDEA awards from the IDSA, making it one of the most decorated companies in the IDEA competition. This year, only 164 products earned the IDEA from the more than 1,700 entries worldwide.
“We are once again honored to be recognized by one of the most prestigious design competitions in the world,” said Mike Gallagher, vice president of design, Crown Equipment. “For Crown, when it comes to our products, it’s about designing viable solutions that meet customer’s unmet needs. Crown’s multi-disciplined design team is committed to using state of the art design thinking to help our customers interact with technology and information in new ways and ultimately improve warehouse productivity, safety and sustainability.”
A typical order picker steps on the operator platform approximately 1,200 times a shift. This is comparable to climbing to the second level of the Eiffel Tower up to two times a shift. Crown’s QuickPick Remote uses semi-automated truck navigation technologies to reduce low-level order picking walk steps, thereby increasing productivity, reducing operator fatigue and improving safety. It cuts “truck on/off” work motions by up to 70 percent, reducing fatigue and improving the operator experience. Crown research has shown that the Crown QuickPick Remote system can save up to five seconds per pick at a 16-foot interpick distance. At 100 picks per hour, QuickPick Remote may generate as much as a 14 percent time savings.
QuickPick Remote allows operators to maintain consistent rhythm and pace, making the most of every second in the fast-paced picking process. Operators simply press a button on a wireless transceiver glove to remotely advance the forklift to the next pick location, virtually eliminating the need to return to the operator compartment while picking. QuickPick Remote operates independently of warehouse networks, which means it is easy to set up and does not consume valuable bandwidth or require costly IT investments.
According to its website, the nonprofit IDSA was founded in 1965, making it one of the oldest and largest membership organizations for industrial design professionals. The organization has more than 3,200 members in 28 professional chapters in the US and internationally. IDEA 2015 awards were recently announced at the ISDA International Conference in Seattle.
The QuickPick Remote technology has earned recognition from across the industry, receiving numerous awards for design and innovation. In the last two years, the technology won the German Design Award 2015, the GOOD DESIGN award as well as an International Forklift Truck of the Year (IFOY) award and an IF Product Design award.
The QuickPick Remote technology is currently available globally on both the Crown PC 4500 Series rider pallet truck and the Crown GPC Series order picker.
