Danone Invests in 10 BAYLO Robotic Forklifts at France Plant

BALYO, a maker of industrial automated forklifts, has announced that it has been selected by the Danone group to outfit a plant located in the north of France with its technology. Over the course of 2023, BALYO will deploy ten of its robotic reach trucks.

The REACHY robotic reach truck is based on the company’s Linde R16HD (1120 series) and can pick pallets up to 11,239 mm (442 in.) in racks and drop up to 10,989 mm (432 in.). The robot is equipped with the company’s 3D pallet detection and 360 Smart Safety System.

Danone has 190 production sites around the world and distributes its products in nearly 120 countries. To optimize the storage space and operating costs of its industrial sites, Danone has chosen BALYO to automate the storage and shipping of pallets operations for one of its most important manufacturing sites.

Danone partnership a major win for BAYLO

“We are very proud to have been selected at the end of 2022 by such a prestigious group as Danone. Their performance standards were rigorous, and we are thrilled that our robots met and exceeded those expectations. Proof of the ease of use of our solutions, the pilot robot was operational the very afternoon following its delivery to the site,” said Pascal Rialland, CEO of BALYO, in a statement.

“The deployment of a fleet of 10 robots within this site is planned over H2 2023,” he said. “This new deployment is an example of the many advances made by BALYO in recent years, both in terms of performance and ease of use of our robots.”

“The robotization of logistics flows remains at the heart of the challenges facing manufacturers and BALYO is perfectly positioned to meet this growing demand,” he added.

BALYO said its robots improve safety and reduce the damage often associated with the manual handling of goods. Its robots use SLAM navigation and LiDAR, along with a host of other sensors.

These systems were designed to operate in areas with very tight space constraints at high elevations, such as narrow aisles and minimal pallet spacing in rack, the Moissy-Cramayel, France-based company said. In addition, BALYO added its robots will be simple and easy to deploy for Danone because they do not require any infrastructure changes to the existing facility space.