On the Way to the Automated Ski Service Machine

A very promising project in the early 1990s was the development of our first automatic ski service machine.

The Micro Center, the first automatic stone-grinding machine, was launched in 1990 and was followed in 1991 by the first fully automatic ski processing center, the Micro Jet Center—a massive plant with 10 processing steps. It was unveiled in spectacular fashion in St. Moritz at Curdin Conrad’s ski service Corvatsch. After the unveiling and the power-up, the guests watched the machine in awe—unfortunately, nothing happened for a full two minutes: The event planners had overlooked the fact that the waxing module needed that time to heat up.

All processing modules had been newly developed for the Micro Jet Center. They formed the basis for many other successful ski service machines. A total of only 8 Micro Jet Centers were built—the time was not yet ripe for such large-scale ski servicing systems. The next evolutionary step in automation solutions came in 1996 with the Shuttle 3C, a modular ski service station.

However, the major breakthrough in automated ski service came in 2005 with the development of the Discovery. Unique selling points such as the patented feed system, which operates without binding bridges; the “Paternoster” ski magazine with an unprecedented storage capacity in a very small space; the high throughput; and the modular design were the foundation of its success: Many customers switched from competitors to WINTERSTEIGER during this time, and 48 Discovery units were sold in the very first year.