Crown Equipment Limited is the New Zealand presence of Crown Equipment Corporation, one of the world's largest lift truck manufacturers. Founded in 1945 by brothers Carl H. Dicke and Allen A. Dicke in rural Ohio, the company remains family-owned and is now led by the fourth generation of the Dicke family. It operates 24 manufacturing facilities and more than 500 retail and service locations across 84 countries.
The company designs and manufactures a full range of material handling equipment - from hand pallet trucks to high-lifting turret trucks - along with fleet management and warehouse technologies including InfoLink and QuickPick Remote. A defining feature of Crown's model is its vertical integration: it designs and manufactures up to 85 percent of its lift truck components in-house, including motors, drive units, and electronic modules, across both electric and internal combustion product lines.
Engineering and design are central to Crown's identity. The company has accumulated more than 100 global design awards and draws on a broad set of technical disciplines - mechanical and electrical engineering, motor and drive-unit design, electronic module development, and human-centered product design - to develop its equipment. This in-house capability spans the full product development cycle, from concept through manufacture.
Technical domains active at Crown include:
- Material handling equipment design and manufacturing
- Electric and internal combustion powertrain engineering
- Motor, drive-unit, and electronic module design
- Fleet management software and remote order-picking technology
- Human-centered and operator-focused product development
