Brightpick, a provider of AI-powered warehouse automation, is significantly expanding its partnership with Dr. Max Group, Europe’s largest pharmacy chain.
Following successful operations and progressive scaling at Dr. Max’s Prague distribution center, Brightpick will deploy an additional 44 Autopicker autonomous mobile robots across other facilities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The total number of deployed robots operating across the group will thus reach 74 units.
The collaboration kicked off in late 2023 with an initial deployment of nine Autopicker robots at the Prague warehouse of Viapharma – Dr. Max’s sister company responsible for pharmacy and hospital logistics. Driven by outstanding operational results, the Prague fleet gradually expanded to its current 30 Autopicker robots.
Thanks to fully autonomous picking, the warehouse can process up to 20,000 items daily with minimal need for human intervention. This enabled a 95 percent reduction in manual picking labor, a 40 percent increase in warehouse capacity, and the practical elimination of picking errors.
Building on this success, two new projects in the Czech Republic and Slovakia will be completed in the second half of this year:
- Viapharma Ostrava: 22 Autopicker robots will automate the process of stock replenishment and medicine picking for pharmacies and hospitals in an identical setup to Prague.
- Dr. Max Bratislava: 22 Autopicker robots will take on a key role in processing and picking rapidly growing volumes of online orders.
Jan Zizka, co-founder and CEO of Brightpick, says: “Expanding our partnership with Dr. Max Group across three major distribution centers is a tremendous validation for us of the reliability and added value of our technology.
“Pharmaceutical logistics demands uncompromising accuracy, speed, and strict adherence to standards. Our solution can effectively handle high-volume replenishment for hospitals and pharmacies as well as a dynamic e-commerce environment with high demands on dispatch speed.”
Rudolf Zurek, logistics director at Viapharma, says: “Deploying Brightpick technology enabled us to fundamentally increase picking accuracy and optimize warehouse processes. As a result, we were able to move human workers from physically demanding picking to more skilled activities, particularly quality control.
“The system’s scalability and the smooth capacity expansion in Prague were key reasons why we decided to implement Autopicker robots in our other key hubs as well.”
Brightpick Autopicker is a multi-purpose autonomous mobile manipulator equipped with patented Physical AI technology and advanced 3D vision, which picks and consolidates orders directly in warehouse aisles.
The system is fully scalable without requiring structural modifications to warehouse space and allows for flexible responses to seasonal peaks.
