Hellenic Post (ELTA), the state-owned Greek postal service, has added more robots to its autonomous mobile robots (AMR) fleet at its sorting centre in Athens.

The fleet of 120 LiBiao AMRs can sort parcels three times faster than the manual system ELTA had in the past.

With the additional robots, ELTA can now handle close to 125,000 parcels weighing up to 10 kg every day and, because each robot only needs to be recharged for five minutes every four hours, on-site power consumption and energy costs are minimised.

ELTA expect its latest investment to pay for itself within two years.

ELTA head of sorting operations Evi Arguriadou says: “Since the introduction of robotic technology our Athens facility has come to be regarded as a centre of excellence within our industry.

“We regularly host visits from executives from other parcel delivery services companies across Europe who are interested in the technology we have deployed.”

LiBiao Robotics founder and chief executive Xia Hulling says: “The initial installation at ELTA and the recent extension highlights perfectly why LiBiao autonomous mobile robot-based sortation technology is proving an attractive alternative to the high capex fixed tilt-tray and cross-belt conveyor-based systems that have historically been used within many busy parcel and e-commerce operations.”

“With no fixed infrastructure requirements, modular AMR-based systems are scalable and offer complete flexibility with additional robots easily introduced as and when they are needed.”

China-based LiBiao Robotics has supplied its AMR technology to customers in China, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia and the United States.