“We’re used to rapid growth, but we didn’t expect demand to increase so massively over the past year or two,” said Martin Hackl, Marketing and Sales Manager for the solar division at Fronius, today, Monday, at a press briefing. Together with the managing partner Elisabeth Engelbrechtsmüller-Strauß and the operational managing director Thomas Herndler, he outlined the development of the youngest division in the group of companies, which is largely responsible for the growth.
The family business, which has its headquarters in Pettenbach and other locations in Wels, Thalheim, Steinhaus and Sattledt, intends to manufacture and sell 510,000 inverters this year. “In the initial phase, we were referred to as green nutcases and produced one or two inverters a week,” remembers Engelbrechtsmüller-Strauß. In the meantime, 3.5 million inverters from Upper Austria are in operation worldwide.
The solar division contributes 53 percent to Fronius’ sales. The welding technology division accounts for 43 percent, and four percent for the much smaller battery charging systems division. The former “problem child” is now even plagued by growing pains. Because in order to meet the demand, Fronius is looking for almost 1,900 employees worldwide this year and next year, confirms the boss. Fronius currently has 6,100 employees worldwide.
Of the 187 million euros invested this year, 160 million will go to Austria – and the majority of that will go to the expansion in Sattledt. The family business plans to complete the new production and logistics site at the end of June and move into it in mid-August. The usable area of currently 41,000 square meters has been expanded by 28,000, a new, fully automated high-bay warehouse offers space for 7,000 pallets and 12,500 small parts containers. In order to attract new employees to the company, there will be more flexible working time models in production from autumn.
Source: Nachrichten
