Fork Lift Trucks Company Profile
responsibility for technology, and Lew Manci, VP Engineering, then offered me a fascinating insight into the challenges and opportunities faced by a market-leading, design driven company operating in today’s rapidly-changing technological climate. “Moving goods is a risk point,” says Tim. “People depend on moving things efficiently and safely, and therefore hesitate to risk that. Traditionally, customers have been reluctant to take a risk. That reluctance has to – and will – change. It’s our job to identify what will be the change agents. “It is incredibly interesting to talk to our major customers about what it will take to make them switch to a new product. It is eye-opening. It doesn’t matter how much better it is, change even with the same supplier is such a big deal. People are resistant to change because they have a lot invested in their old products. You have to work through that with them. “A number of technologies have come into our industry that look interesting, but you don’t see them really taking hold. People say ‘I have to train people, how do I support it, it won’t work...’ It’s a huge deal for industrial products; it’s what makes our industry spin slower than commercial products.”
CUSTOMER LOYALTY
Tim refers me to ‘The Effortless Experience’, a book by Matthew Dixon, which looks at the new battleground for customer loyalty. The whole notion of delighting the customer is not what people want. What people want is to not be bothered. “That’s exactly true,” says Tim. “You don’t
want to spend five minutes having a nice chat with a customer representative. You want to spend two seconds getting your problem fixed. That’s exactly what’s happening culturally and in business. If you can make things simple for your customers, you can take away all their effort, you will have loyal customers. What people value is their time. “Ten years from now, things will be accepted faster than now.” But how does this impact on the lift truck industry? “You will see more innovation from OEMs,” says Tim, “as well as a notion which comes through from apps – everything is in ‘beta’. You used to go to market with products that were very refined with a lot of testing, but today the notion is that people accept something that isn’t perfect because they’re now used to getting bug fixes constantly. Customers can get something today that may have a few bugs in it that in the past they would never have accepted. This will start to affect industrial products that are networked, that have on- board smart computers – a problem can be fixed quickly just by uploading a code.”
RISK REDUCTION
Tim believes this will ultimately speed things to market, changing the rate of adoption of technology by customers and their willingness to try it. “Instead of waiting until they have been taken to see five customers all running exactly the same thing they want to buy, the early adopters see the opportunity to grow as a segment because the risk to them is reduced because the technology allows you to reduce that risk.”
Electrical component assembly
Lew adds: “The analysts are talking about disruptive technologies across all different industries; we think there are seven specific ones that are most likely to impact materials handling: autonomous vehicles, big data analytics, the Internet of Things, advanced robotics, social networking, energy storage, and mobile technology.” Lew and his team follow these closely to gain greater understanding of how Crown can develop its products and services to help its customers create value through harnessing this new technology. The aim is to integrate more intelligence into the vehicles and connect that with data from other systems within the warehouse. Coupled with cloud services, this approach will provide the visibility to further optimise end-to-end supply chain processes and operations. Lew continues: “We’re seeing a lot of technology emerge out of the automotive sector, and we think we will be able to take advantage of those soon. We’re looking at a concept we call ‘forklift as a data hub’, whereby Crown envisions a connected warehouse in which the forklift becomes not only a roving sensor that reaches parts of the warehouse no other system is reaching, but also a hub that collects data from various other devices, acts on this data, and consolidates and analyses it for other systems. We’re also looking closely at what’s happening with indoor GPS or location tracking indoors. “There’s a lot of activity happening outside of our industry in the area of knowledge of the location of things, and that’s what’s going to add value to MHE in warehouses.” Tim concludes: “This is a time of disruption that I don’t think our industry has ever seen. Looking at it from a macro perspective, there are some significant disruptors that influence a broad range of products. It will be fascinating to see where it all goes. “I am certain the rate of change in our industry is going to accelerate. What exactly is going to change is a question that every single R&D department in the world is focused on! The truth is, you’re going to see more change quicker from OEMs. And that, as much as anything, is because our customers are going to allow it, and the types of technology coming in will allow it. “If you’re in the business of innovation, and you don’t like the world you’re living in today, you’re never going to like it. It’s an absolutely fascinating time.” n
www.crown.com 30 September 2014
www.shdlogistics.com
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