Spar St. Gallen

SPAR is the world’s largest voluntary concentration of grocers in a franchise system. The store network in Switzerland includes 185 neighbourhood and convenience stores, as well as eleven TopCC cash-and-carries for caterers, business customers, clubs and public institutions. These are supplied from the SPAR Group central warehouse in St. Gallen. An in-house fleet of 100 electric forklift trucks ensures the fast and efficient flow of goods.

As SPAR operates a shift system, the forklift trucks and their batteries must be designed for long periods of use. The 50 Hz battery chargers were kept in a separate area in the basement – this was inconvenient and took up much valuable time. The warehouse management team therefore decided to modernise the charging infrastructure.  

 

Fronius developed a customised complete system for SPAR. The most important change was moving the charging technology from the basement to the ground floor. The compact Selectiva battery chargers allowed a flexible and space-saving approach to installation – in one case, they were even integrated above head height in the steelwork construction of a high-bay warehouse. Thanks to the external start/stop function, no settings are required on the device itself. Of course, Fronius made sure that all safety rules and standards were met for every variant.