ATHENS, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Greece's national postal services provider Hellenic Post (ELTA in Greek) has started using a Chinese-made robotic system for sorting mail items, aiming to accelerate the process and improve service for customers.

The fully digitalized automated system is developed by China's Zhejiang LiBiao Robot Co., Ltd.

Errikos Tzavaras, Chief Executive Officer at ELTA Courier SA, a member company of ELTA Group, told Xinhua in a recent interview here 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.

Since mid-August, 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.

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.