Crown Equipment Corporation

The company traces its evolution to the 1920s, when it manufactured and sold temperature controls for coal-burning furnaces as the Pioneer Heat Regulator Company. That market disappeared as the nation turned to gas heat. In 1945, the company was changing focus and became Crown Controls Corp. In 1949, as a market for television emerged, Crown began producing television antenna rotators. For two decades, starting in the late 1950s, Crown’s survival and growth were supported by subcontract work, manufacturing mechanical and electrical components for private industry (e.g., Baldwin Pianos and IBM) and the U.S. government, especially the military.

Crown entered the material handling industry with niche products in which the major players had no interest. After shipping its first model in 1956, Crown developed several specialty lift trucks, including stockpickers and order pickers for the U.S. government, a hamper-dumper truck for the U.S. Postal Service, and trucks for carrying caskets for funeral parlors. Crown later decided to stop making so many one-of-a-kind trucks and developed two lines of E-Z Lift Trucks: an H series (hand-operated) and a B series (battery-operated). In 1959, when its lift trucks had annual sales of about $50,000, antenna rotators had annual sales of $700,000, but the transition to the lift truck business was under way. Crown stopped manufacturing the rotators in late 2000.

Crown hired Deane Richardson and David B. Smith, of RichardsonSmith, to design a medium-duty hand-controlled pallet truck, which went on the market in 1962. That pallet truck won a design excellence award from the American Iron and Steel Institute in 1965. Good design became part of Crown’s corporate strategy. Crown focused on niche markets, which didn’t affect competitors whose bread and butter were gas trucks and electric rider trucks. In 1970, Levitz, the furniture discounter, placed an order for 67 Crown stockpickers, which got momentum for sales going. That year, Crown joined the Industrial Truck Association and opened a plant in Australia.

Manufacturing facilities

Crown manufactures up to 85 percent of the parts used in its lift trucks, producing components ranging from wire harnesses to electric motors. Crown's lift truck manufacturing facilities include over 1,500,000 square feet (140,000 m2) in west central Ohio. Crown also has manufacturing facilities in North Carolina, Indiana and Illinois. It has manufacturing, distribution and sales operations in Germany and Mexico. Since April 2006, Crown has been manufacturing hand pallet trucks in a 150,000-square-foot (14,000 m2) facility in Suzhou, China.

All Crown manufacturing facilities – including the small components, motor, mast and final assembly plants, as well as engineering, purchasing, design, distribution center and tool rooms have obtained ISO 9001:2000 certification.

Crown received the State of Ohio Governor's Award for Outstanding Achievements in Pollution Prevention in 1992. In 2004, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated Crown a Waste Minimization Partner, publicly recognizing the firm for its voluntary efforts. As part of EPA’s National Partnership for Environmental Priorities (NPEP) program, Crown set a partnership goal of eliminating chromium from its paints. Crown reduced its hazardous waste emissions by more than 300,000 pounds by removing chromium (in the form of ammonium dichromate as a flash rust inhibitor) from water-based paint formulations. By installing a new powder coat paint line, Crown eliminated more than 65 percent of wastewater from its water curtain paint booths, cutting more than 200,000 pounds of wastewater and sludge. The results included reduced air emissions, a better work environment and savings of $65,000 annually.

Crown products and services

Crown manufactures narrow-aisle and very narrow-aisle stacking equipment, narrow-aisle reach trucks, counterbalanced trucks, high-level stockpickers, turret trucks, walkie stackers, work assist vehicles®, hand pallet trucks, powered pallet trucks, rider pallet trucks, and LP gas trucks.