What happened
Midleton Distillery in County Cork, owned by Irish Distillers of the Pernod Ricard Group, receives empty 60 kg barrels stacked three high in shipping containers. Two operators used to unload them by hand onto a carousel, with risks of back and crush injuries. Accidents continued despite rotation, lower stacks and training. The distillery consulted the automation firm Pilz in 2017, and a joint team designed a tailor-made autonomous mobile robot guided by an AI vision system. The system was developed over three years and became fully operational in the summer of 2024. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work published the case study on 14 May 2025 as a winning entry in its 16th Healthy Workplaces Good Practice Awards. It reports a 100 % reduction in accidents and no barrel-handling accidents since the introduction. The company also estimates savings of EUR 1.38 million a year from unloading three-high stacks. The figures are the company's, no baseline accident count is given and EU-OSHA does not say that it checked them.
Sources
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Descriptive report, by authors with no tie to the system.
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). Robotic barrel unloading system to reduce risk of musculoskeletal injuries (Midleton Distillery, Ireland). Healthy Workplaces Good Practice Awards 2023-2025 case study, 14 May 2025.
the company invested in a tailored autonomous mobile robot with AI vision to minimise manual handling while keeping a human-in-command approach. As a result, the barrel unloading process has seen a 100 % reduction in accidents.
Since its introduction, no accidents related to barrel handling have been reported.
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Descriptive report, by authors with no tie to the system. Context or contrary evidence.
European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). Ireland: Robotic barrel unloading system to reduce risk of musculoskeletal injuries. Publication page, 14 May 2025.
Midleton Distillery is one of the winning examples of the 16th Healthy Workplaces Good Practice Awards competition
Details
AI system
- Workflow
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A joint team of Pilz consultants, distillery engineers, safety staff and operators designed the robot over three years. The robot unloads barrels stacked three high while operators supervise from a secure area.
Follow-up
- Conditions for replication
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Safety circuits, light curtains and floor scanners must stop the robot when a person enters its zone. Operators must stay in command of the process and intervene only under the safety protocols.
Entry details
- Sector
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Workplace safety.
- Purpose
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Pilz and Midleton Distillery built the autonomous mobile robot to unload stacked barrels from shipping containers so that operators no longer handle 60 kg barrels by hand.
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Cite this benefit
Peter H. Vartanian. (2026). AI-vision robot ends barrel-unloading accidents at Midleton (AIBD-1181). Artificial Intelligence Benefits Database, edition of 2 November 2026. https://petervartanian.xyz/aibd/records/AIBD-1181.html (archived at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AADSII, version 9.0)