Complete Warehouse Solution Earns Crown Equipment Third Consecutive SDCE Top 100 Supply Chain Projects Award

NEW BREMEN, Ohio (August 18, 2020) – Crown Equipment Corporation, one of the world’s largest material handling companies, earned a Supply & Demand Chain Executive’s (SDCE) Top 100 Supply Chain Projects award for the third consecutive year. Crown was recognized for a complete warehouse solution that included warehouse design, racking and lift trucks for Lipari Foods, a Warren, Michigan-based wholesale distributor of dry, refrigerated and frozen foods.

The annual SDCE Top 100 award showcases successful and innovative projects that deliver bottom-line value to small, medium and large enterprises across the range of supply chain functions. The full list of this year’s SDCE Top 100 projects are featured in the publication’s June 2020 print and online editions.

SDCE recognized Crown for helping Lipari Foods determine the appropriate design, racking and material handling equipment for a new 260,000-square-foot warehouse, built to support the company’s rapid growth.

Crown Warehouse Solutions design experts were embedded on-site throughout the project to work through challenges and design iterations and to help Lipari make smart planning and design decisions to enhance productivity and continued business growth.

The team’s work included helping the company adopt an engineered standard for all of its racking – which Lipari had not previously done – and to select robust structural racking to meet the demands. The company previously had experienced frequent damage to its racking, requiring replacement at least once per week.

To reduce rack damage, Lipari asked Crown to help implement process changes to prevent reach truck operators from traveling while raising and lowering the forks. The company was concerned that this could reduce productivity. Crown recommended that Lipari use Crown RM Series narrow-aisle reach trucks with Xpress Lower™ technology that increases top lowering speed from 110 to 240 feet per minute. The time gained during lift and lower cycles more than offset the additional time required by Lipari’s process change, enabling the company to maintain high productivity while eliminating damage to racking.

“Crown was very instrumental in helping us select the products that we used, what type of equipment. So, whether it’s the racking, whether it’s the material handling equipment, Crown has nailed it on both ends,” said Thom Lipari, president and CEO of Lipari Foods.

Al Moy, director of warehouse operations for Lipari Foods, added, “Crown brought us to a whole new level. We’ve been in the facility here a little over a year and we haven’t had to replace one upright yet.”

About Crown Equipment Corporation

Crown is one of the world’s largest material handling companies with a reputation for award-winning product design, advanced engineering and technology, and superior after-sale service. Crown’s business philosophy utilizes vertically integrated processes to design, manufacture and distribute forward-thinking, innovative solutions that improve customers’ productivity and operating efficiency. Crown produces a broad range of forklifts as well as automation and fleet management technologies.

The company’s global headquarters is located in New Bremen, Ohio, USA, with regional headquarters in Australia, China, Germany and Singapore. Its employees number more than 16,200 worldwide. Crown operates a service and distribution network that exceeds 500 retail locations in over 80 countries. To learn more about Crown’s ideas for helping customers advance the productivity of their operations, visit crown.com.