The owners of the group with 7,000 employees worldwide are the founding family and the holding company of former minister Bartenstein. Read here about the rise of the Styrian family business, which supplies automation solutions to the world’s largest companies in 62 countries.
Last year, the Styrian high-tech logistics company Knapp secured the largest order in the company’s history in the US. American retailer Walmart relies on Hart’s expertise in Styria and has built four fully automated warehouses (“fulfilment centers”) – each with approximately 100,000 square meters of space.
The company has now been awarded a €50 million project in Australia by Woolworth, the country’s largest retailer. A fully automated warehouse with 120,000 storage locations is also being built west of Sydney. Construction began in January and commissioning will begin in early 2025. “It’s our biggest order here to date,” says Australian boss Michael Kemeny. In addition, there are currently three or four other projects, each worth €9 to €18 million. The 50 employees can grow to 200 in the future.
More than 70 years ago, the inventor and tinkerer Günter Knapp founded his company with the production of special machines in a garage in Graz. Much was built, from oil burner nozzles to milk pumps to donut filling machines. However, the company soon concentrated on elevators, lifting systems and conveyors. One of the first customers was (and still is) pharmaceutical giant Herba Chemosan.
Since then, the family business, which Gerald Hofer has led since 2010, has gone from strength to strength. In the past ten years alone, turnover has risen from EUR 380 million to almost EUR 1.7 billion. The number of employees increased from approximately 2000 to approximately 7000 currently at 62 locations worldwide. In 2018, former Minister of Economic Affairs Martin Bartenstein, whose pharmaceutical company also uses Knapp systems, took the opportunity to take a stake in the company with about 28 percent. The majority belong to the founding family.
Despite the rapid growth, the end of the road is far from being reached. The topic of automation is being pushed everywhere because of the labor shortage, they say. In addition, Covid has accelerated online shopping. Fast order processing is therefore becoming increasingly important for large retailers.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
