Crown Equipment, one of the world’s largest material handling companies, today announced that it had resumed operations at all 24 of its global manufacturing plants.

How forklift operators interact with their equipment affects overall warehouse productivity and safety. While many manufacturers tout their designs as ergonomic, human factors is often only given attention during the evaluation stage of product development.

Crown Equipment Corporation, one of the world’s largest material handling companies, has introduced the D4 Armrest as an option for its Crown C-5 Series, Crown FC Series and Crown SC Series sit-down counterbalance forklifts.    

The supply chain and warehouse are overflowing with data; not all of it on product movement. Warehouse and forklift connectivity is generating data on worker performance, forklift utilisation and the health and status of equipment.

Despite warehouse technology advances, such as pick-to-voice systems, the low-level order picking process is still noticeably inefficient. It can take as many as nine discrete actions from when an operator places one case on a pallet to when they place the next case on the pallet.

Warehouse managers everywhere are under pressure. Even cold storage operations are feeling the heat. Managers are being challenged to fit more SKUs into existing space, turn their inventory faster and squeeze more productivity out of their existing assets.

Companies expand a significant amount of effort and resources to bring predictability to their supply chains. The ability to foresee and quickly respond to potential unexpected downtime, shifting market conditions and changing consumer demand is an invaluable asset in helping companies avoid or minimise supply chain disruptions.