Category: News
WMH is delighted to announce that its groundbreaking Robotic Pizza Laning System has been recognised with the Automate UK Innovative Robotics Award 2026, celebrating an automation project that is transforming efficiency within high-speed food manufacturing.
The award recognises WMH’s ability to solve a long-standing production challenge through intelligent robotics, innovative engineering and practical automation design.
Solving a Common Manufacturing Bottleneck
In high-speed pizza production environments, each product lane traditionally feeds a dedicated flow wrapper. While effective, this approach creates a significant challenge whenever a packaging machine requires a film reel change. During the changeover, production on that lane is interrupted, reducing throughput, lowering productivity and impacting overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).
WMH identified an opportunity to eliminate this bottleneck altogether.
The company’s engineering team developed an innovative robotic laning system capable of maintaining continuous production throughout packaging changeovers. By intelligently redistributing pizzas across available packaging lines, the system ensures manufacturing can continue uninterrupted, even when one flow wrapper is temporarily offline.
An Award-Winning Automation Concept
Under normal operating conditions, three pizza production lanes feed three flow wrappers. When a film change is required on one wrapper, the WMH system automatically reconfigures the flow of products, converting the three lanes into two balanced output streams.
This seamless redistribution takes place automatically, without operator intervention, ensuring production continues at optimum efficiency.
The result is a smarter, more resilient manufacturing process that maximises throughput, minimises downtime and significantly improves line performance.
Combining Robotics, Controls and Hygienic Design
The successful delivery of the project required close collaboration between WMH’s robotics, controls, mechanical design and engineering teams, working alongside the customer to fully understand the operational requirements of the production line.
The solution integrates:
- Robotic handling technology
- Intelligent control software
- Conveyor system design
- Hygienic food-industry engineering
- Packaging line integration
At the heart of the system are three Mitsubishi robots equipped with bespoke hygienic end effectors specifically designed for pizza handling. WMH’s controls engineers developed sophisticated software capable of tracking product movement and dynamically balancing product loads across the available wrappers in real time.
Extensive testing and commissioning ensured the system consistently achieved performance targets while maintaining the highest standards of product quality and food safety.
Innovation Through Simplicity
One of the factors that impressed the award judges was the system’s innovative yet remarkably simple approach.
Unlike many robotic food-handling applications that rely heavily on complex machine vision systems, WMH’s solution uses just a single sensor on each lane to detect product position. Intelligent software and conveyor synchronisation allow the robots to accurately track and manage pizzas without the need for costly vision technology.
This simplified architecture delivers multiple benefits, including reduced maintenance requirements, improved reliability and lower lifetime operating costs.
The three robots work collaboratively to collate and uniformly space up to 140 pizzas per minute. When a wrapper is taken offline, pizzas are immediately redirected and redistributed between the remaining active wrappers, maintaining production flow and preventing bottlenecks.
The system’s bespoke hygienic end effector also demonstrates innovative thinking. By handling pizzas only at the outer edge of the base, the design protects toppings from damage while ensuring exceptional hygiene standards and consistent product presentation.
Delivering Measurable Results
The benefits delivered by the Robotic Pizza Laning System extend far beyond automation alone.
Key outcomes include:
- Continuous production during wrapper film changes
- Significantly reduced downtime
- Increased overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
- Optimised throughput across packaging operations
- Handling rates of up to 140 pizzas per minute
- Reduced operator intervention
- Lower maintenance costs through simplified sensing technology
- Improved production line utilisation
- Enhanced reliability and operational resilience
- Consistent product quality and presentation
- Improved food safety and hygiene standards
By removing packaging changeovers as a source of lost productivity, the system enables manufacturers to maximise available production time and improve asset utilisation across the entire packaging operation.
Recognition for Innovation
Winning the Automate UK Innovative Robotics/Automation Solution Award is a significant achievement for WMH and reflects the expertise, creativity and dedication of the company’s engineering teams.
Rather than simply automating an existing task, the Robotic Pizza Laning System rethinks the packaging process itself, creating a smarter and more efficient way of working. The project demonstrates how intelligent automation can solve real-world manufacturing challenges while delivering measurable operational benefits.
As manufacturers continue to seek ways to improve productivity, efficiency and resilience, this award-winning solution showcases how innovative robotics can unlock new levels of performance within modern food production environments.
The Automate UK Award is a testament to WMH’s commitment to developing practical automation solutions that deliver genuine value to customers and push the boundaries of what is possible in manufacturing automation.