Artificial intelligence controls logistics processes of Coca-Cola HBC Hungary

Coca-Cola HBC Hungary, the country’s largest soft drink producer, has recently made investments worth more than HUF 750 million to improve its logistics processes. The company's central warehouse in Dunaharaszti was the first among the Hungarian food industry players that equipped its operation with robots led by artificial intelligence supporting employees to increase the efficiency of picking methods and provide more accurate customer service. With the help of forward-looking technological innovations, the company is taking another major step towards building the largest Central European production hub of the Coca-Cola System in Hungary.

Coca-Cola HBC Hungary is committed to supporting its business operations in all areas of the value chain through continuous improvements. During the 26 years of its presence in Hungary, the company has invested more than HUF 125 billion in the country: it has built 2 production hubs and 8 logistics centers, which directly or indirectly created jobs and livelihoods for thousands of people. Pioneer technological solutions supporting digitalization and automatization are also being implemented in warehousing processes, enabling even faster and more accurate customer service.

The company installed robots operated by artificial intelligence in its central warehouse in Dunaharaszti in 2022, within the framework of an investment worth HUF 730 million. The so-called robot picking investment is a unique logistical innovation in the Hungarian food industry. From now on, part of the picking process involved in logistics will be handled automatically in a 1000 square meters area that is completely separated from employees, where processes like the pre-delivery assembling, palletizing, and wrapping of new products are carried out by three automatic robotic arms, forklifts and smaller vehicles – so-called sharks - responsible for the moving of the products.

This technology handles the company’s top 20 best-selling products based on their position in the warehouse with zero error. The three robotic arms can assemble up to 6 pallets per hour, working twice as fast as human workforce. Unable to get tired, robots can do the work equivalent of up to 4 loaders in the same amount of time. While the technology helps the picking processes during weekdays, on weekends it assembles mixed pallets for the company's largest customers based on some predefined patterns. The robots are expected to handle 15 percent of the special picking and packing duties of the more than 700 million liters of finished products that turn over in the Dunaharaszti warehouse each year.

The newly introduced robot picking technology is not the only efficiency improvement in the company's life that supports digitalization. Smart glasses have been used in the order picking process since 2020, which enables the employees of Coca-Cola HBC Hungary to assemble customer orders for delivery in the warehouse using voice-guided instructions. The vision picking technology, powered by artificial intelligence, improves the quality of product picking, makes it possible to measure and improve the efficiency of work, and it can help to develop current working processes by making a wide range of different data available to analyze.

Thanks to the investment, 24 people can work safely at the same time in the picking area using smart glasses. At the central warehouse in Dunaharaszti. A total of 38 smart glasses are currently in use, and thanks to the improvement, the picking accuracy is 99.9% and the efficiency of order assembling has increased by 10%. The company spent a total of HUF 21 million on this investment.