Hyster receives GOOD DESIGN Award for intelligent walkie pallet truck

Hyster Company has announced that it has received a 2014 GOOD DESIGN award for its W45ZHD walkie pallet truck.

Presented by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, GOOD DESIGN honors yearly achievements of the best industrial designers, graphic designers and world manufacturers for extraordinary design excellence.

“The GOOD DESIGN award highlights Hyster’s continuing efforts to help boost customer efficiency and productivity through innovative design and technology,” said Matt Hoffman, senior functional engineer, who led the design project for Hyster. “We are honored to be recognized in the industrial category for the design of the W45ZHD walkie pallet truck, and remain committed to developing reliable, state-of-the-art products for our customers.”

The W45ZHD walkie pallet truck is engineered to for harsh applications with efficiency and productivity in mind. Its steel frame is coupled with a highly engineered drive unit casting, making it one of the heaviest drive unit frames in the industry. The truck offers an unobstructed view of the forks for pallet loading and unloading, and is available with a feature that allows operators to simultaneously transport and lift pallets, helping decrease cycle times by up to 25%. Trucks equipped with this technology can automatically lift the pallet to the maximum fork height without continually having to hold the lift button.

Another exclusive feature uses a sensor to recognize when the operator turns the truck during cornering and automatically reduces speed, assisting the operator through the corner.