Crown ESR 5000 Reach Truck earns international design accolade

Crown Equipment, along with some of the world’s most recognized brands like Dell, Microsoft and Panasonic, has been honored by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) with an International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) for the Crown ESR 5000 Series of narrow-aisle reach trucks used throughout Asia and Europe. This is the 5th consecutive and 18th overall IDEA for Crown. No other company has won more IDEAs in the Commercial and Industrial Equipment category in the last 10 years than Crown.

“Great products come from great thinking,” said Mike Gallagher, Crown vice president of design. “It’s always gratifying to be recognized for our efforts. It’s one more stamp of credibility for the design staff and Crown employees who are driven to create not only great and innovative products but also great experiences for our customers.”

Isabel Ancona, one of the competition’s judges, wrote in her evaluation of the Crown ESR, “There are several details that demonstrate a solid understanding of the various workflows and user needs—creating a safe and usable ‘workspace’ for the driver, [providing] more visibility, [simplifying] user interface controls, and [including] visual cues on the truck for safer driving.”

The 2010 IDSA IDEA program received 1,855 entries. Only 37 entries earned the gold designation. Submissions came in from Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom and the United States.