Crown launches new field service technology

CROWN EQUIPMENT has announced the South-east Asian roll-out of its latest in-house developed software solution for managing and maintaining forklift fleets. Crown is an expert in applying technology to forklift trucks and developing fully integrated warehouse management software systems such as InfoLink to help its customers make better business decisions.

The new service management system, said the company, is a powerful information management and messaging system that will bring together everything a field service technician needs to carry out the most efficient repairs and maintenance to customers’ forklift fleets. The system does away with many paper-based systems, reducing the incidence of human error, lost paperwork or misread handwritten notes. It also maintains a complete service history for every lift truck used by every Crown customer in the region.

With the new service management system, when a service technician visits a  customer’s premises, he can immediately pull down the recent service history of any lift truck requiring service directly onto his pocket PC to help in assessing the service requirement.

The technician can then message Crown’s parts distribution centre, ordering any necessary items which may not be carried as part of the standard stock in his service van. These parts are quickly picked, packed and shipped to the technician’s local facility for collection.

When the service of the lift truck is completed, the service technician sends a comprehensive service report directly to Crown’s database, where the customer’s service history is automatically updated.

“Crown takes service very seriously, and invests heavily in personnel, spare parts and facilities. We have invested in new and expanded service facilities, the most recent being the facilities in Rayong, Thailand and Johor, Malaysia,” said David Sultana, marketing manager, Crown Equipment, South-east Asia.

“This new service tool is further proof of our commitment to increase our customers’ forklift fleet uptime so that their businesses run smoothly and profitably, and it is yet another example how Crown invests in technology to increase efficiency.”