NEW BREMEN, Ohio (February 23, 2012) – Just when Interstate Warehousing, one of the top 10 refrigerated warehousing companies in North America, thought it had seen it all in terms of options for storing customers’ products, it found opportunity in the form of the new Crown RM 6000 narrow aisle reach truck. Interstate Warehousing believed that it could enhance service to its customers and keep their costs down by leveraging unused rack space at the top of its distribution centers. In many cases, the space had gone unused because no forklift had the capacity to lift heavy product that high in their application until Crown Equipment, one of the world’s leading forklift manufacturers, introduced the Crown RM 6000 in February 2010.
Interstate Warehousing, a Tippmann Group company, operates more than 80 million cubic feet of refrigerated warehousing space at 10 facilities located throughout the United States. In addition, Tippmann Construction, a subsidiary of Tippmann Group, and a sister company to Interstate Warehousing designs and builds warehouses nationwide.
“We don’t just focus on the cubic foot of our warehouses, we try to use every cubic inch,” said Chuck Tippmann, president, the Tippmann Group. “At the time, the majority of our warehouses had wasted cubic inches because the majority of our product exceeded the capacity of our forklifts that could reach the higher positions – there was an obvious need, we just didn’t know there was an answer.”
The Crown RM 6000 is the industry’s first narrow aisle reach truck with a monomast, and the first pantograph reach truck that can reach 505 inches and deliver up to 1,000 pounds more capacity at height than conventional mast reach trucks. For the first time, Interstate Warehousing had the opportunity to fill the highest space in its warehouses with the majority of its product.
“The majority of the product we store is 1,600 to 2,000 pounds. Until the Crown RM 6000 came along, our trucks didn’t have the capacity to lift the majority of our product,” said Tippmann.
“This reach truck has allowed us to increase capacity in our warehouses, which gives us more flexibility and versatility to better serve our customers.”
Because of the Crown RM 6000’s capabilities, Tippmann Construction now has the ability to build its warehouses higher and in doing so, add more capacity for its customers. The company anticipates that its next warehouse expansion will be built around the Crown RM 6000.
“We’ve always had the philosophy of building our warehouses up instead of out to save money, but with the Crown RM 6000, we can now build even higher, and we foresee that translating into building our customers’ warehouses higher as well,” said Tippmann. “Competitors have nothing to match in terms of a truck that reaches this height with this capacity. The Crown RM 6000 has truly pushed the limits of this industry, and we’re proud of the fact that we tried this new equipment in our facilities. Its benefits have been tenfold.”
![]()
Click to Read the Entire Case Study (PDF)
About Crown Equipment Corporation
Crown is one of the world’s largest lift truck manufacturers. Crown’s award-winning line of lift trucks maintains a reputation for exceptional product design, engineering and manufacturing. From the smallest hand pallet truck to the highest lifting turret truck, Crown seeks to provide users with safe, efficient and ergonomic lift trucks that lower total cost of ownership and maximize uptime. Headquartered in New Bremen, Ohio, Crown manufactures lift trucks that are sold throughout the world. For more information, visit http://www.crown.com/usa/index.html.
Images
