Konecranes’ Smarter Cabin, launched in 2011, has received the Fennia Prize 2012 award. The Smarter Cabin, designed in close cooperation with key customers, provides crane operators with an ergonomic and comfortable work place with improved visibility of the work area. In addition to high standard design, the evaluation criteria included usability, environmental and social responsibility and impact on business.
“When starting to plan the new cabin, we adopted a user-centered design approach, which included observing the operators and their activities during their work, says Johannes Tarkiainen, Industrial Design Manager at Konecranes. “We also interviewed the operators to learn what improvements they desired for their work environment. The cabin design is therefore based on existing user needs.”
The new cabin can be used for many different applications, e.g. for container handling with rail mounted gantry cranes (RMG), rubber tired gantry cranes (RTG) and straddle carriers, as well as for handling other kinds of loads with electric overhead cranes.
Konecranes’ Smarter Cabin makes the crane drivers’ work easier, safer and more effective, resulting in improved productivity.
The Fennia Prize – Good design grows global competition is arranged by Design Forum Finland and Fennia Group. It is targeting companies producing designed goods and applying design in other ways in their operations. The competition is an opportunity for businesses to stand out through innovative and responsible design of economic significance. The objective with the prize is to encourage companies to make innovative and broad use of design in product development, manufacturing and matters relating to corporate image.
The awards of the competition are the Fennia Prize Grand Prix, individual Fennia Prizes, and Fennia Prize Honorary Mentions.
Further information:
Mikael Wegmüller, Vice President, Marketing and Communications
E-mail: [email protected] or phone +358 20 427 2008
Johannes Tarkiainen, Industrial Design Manager
E-mail: [email protected] or phone +358 20 427 2128
This press release and a downloadable photo are available on our website www.konecranes.com.
Caption: “We are very proud of the Fennia Prize 2012 award,” says the design team consisting of Ari Nieminen, Chief R&D Engineer; Sami Koponen, Industrial Designer; and Johannes Tarkiainen, Industrial Design Manager.
Konecranes is a world-leading group of Lifting Businesses™, serving a broad range of customers, including manufacturing and process industries, shipyards, ports and terminals. Konecranes provides productivity-enhancing lifting solutions as well as services for lifting equipment and machine tools of all makes. In 2011, Group sales totaled EUR 1,896 million. The Group has 11,700 employees at 609 locations in 47 countries. Konecranes is listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki (symbol: KCR1V).
