SPAR Inaugurates New Logistics Center with KNAPP Technology

Food retailer SPAR opens the doors of their new logistics center in Graz, Austria, after a two-year rebuild ensuring the supply of groceries and other products to 1.4 million people. The market leader in Austrian food retail automated their entire goods-in process and rounded out the center with a fully automatic high-bay racking system for pallets together with KNAPP as their technology partner.

SPAR decided to expand their logistics center at their regional SPAR hub in Graz to meet the increasing demand for a wider selection of products and to ensure their stores are supplied adequately. The area dedicated to logistics processes was extended by 40 % and together with KNAPP, the goods-in area was fully automated to achieve significant gains in efficiency.

“Organically expanding existing infrastructure using innovation and automated processes – that’s what SPAR’s logistics network is all about. The expansion dramatically increases the productivity per square meter, is sustainable, saves resources, creates state-of-the-art working conditions and ensures the food supply. The warehouse expansion at the Graz location is another incredible milestone in our endeavors to achieve this,” emphasizes Member of the Board, Marcus Wild, who is responsible for the logistics at SPAR.

KNAPP optimizes goods-in processes

KNAPP installed a fully automatic high-bay racking system for pallets with a footprint of 2,500 m² (approx. 26,910 ft²), allowing effective use of space in the goods-in area. The racking system stretches 10 meters in length and 17 meters in height (33 ft x 56 ft) and provides no less than 6,400 storage locations, optimizing SPAR Graz’s storage capacity and additionally increasing their storage density.

In the goods-in area, 180 pallets can now be automatically processed per hour, around 80 of which can be stored in the high-bay racking system. The Powerline pallet conveyor system – another KNAPP technology – conveys around 100 pallets to the connected picking stations in the same timeframe.

Partnership is the key to a successful customer relationship

KNAPP and SPAR share a long-standing partnership: Their first joint project was implemented back in 2009. Since then, they have continually implemented new and flexible solutions for store delivery as well as sustainable solutions for empties management together.

Figures on SPAR logistics center in Graz

The SPAR location in Graz is one of the six main SPAR hubs in Austria. The logistics center in Graz delivers groceries to the 273 SPAR, EUROSPAR and INTERSPAR stores as well as the SPAR express stores in gas stations across Styria and the southern part of Burgenland. In this region alone, SPAR provides jobs for over 7,900 people.

The Graz location has a footprint of 40,000 m² (430,000 ft²), receiving 3,700 pallets of new products from 570 different suppliers every single day and delivering more than 5,350 different products, ranging from shelf-stable groceries, fresh fruit and vegetables to milk and dairy products, to stores. Another 18,000 products are stored at the central warehouse in Wels, Upper Austria. This warehouse delivers goods to the Graz location for cross-docking and subsequent delivery to the SPAR stores. Picking onto roll containers is exclusively manual; only the storage processes for a certain proportion of goods is automatically handled by the new KNAPP system.