EUROPEAN FIRST: 55 Chinese robots sort out Greek mail at Hellenic Post

Chinese robotics have been employed by Greece's national postal service provider  Hellenic Post (ELTA) for sorting mail items, aiming to accelerate the process and improve service for customer, reports Xinhuanet news service.

According to the news report, a fleet of 55 tiny yellow robots has joined employees at the Group's facilities in Kryoneri, a northern suburb of Athens. They are starring in a process which until a few weeks ago was mainly manual and semi-mechanized, helping dramatically increase efficiency and speed in sorting and consequently in deliveries.

Errikos Tzavaras, Chief Executive Officer at ELTA Courier SA, a member company of ELTA Group, told Xinhua in a recent interview that the installation is "the first in Europe."

"It is in operation in China, at China Post, in Japan in various companies and also Walmart in the U.S.," Tzavaras added.

The robots receive parcels at eight infeed stations, identify their destination through a code-scan, and distribute them at 144 sorting destinations, handling currently nearly 76 percent of total deliveries at the sorting center.

By adding the robots to the sorting process, Tzavaras explained: "We are better utilizing our human resources. We avoid human errors and we are making the work easier for employees. Moreover, we have increased the speed of the sorting process by 250 percent."

The deployment of the robots has also helped create a COVID-free environment at the center, he added, noting that the new system is a significant step in ELTA's strategy for the future.

"This investment was part of our digital transformation and the pandemic showed the need to accelerate the process," Tzavaras told Xinhua.