Proven in Operation. Built to Scale.

It started as a customer-driven innovation: Belgian retailer Colruyt Group , a long-standing KION customer, was looking for a way to automate point-to-point pallet transport in the warehouses supplying its more than 700 stores. The solution was an autonomous pallet truck platform that has since proved itself in daily operations: 30 vehicles have been in use for the past two years.

A Bigger Challenge

That experience opened the door to an even more demanding application: autonomous trailer loading and unloading, often described as the “holy grail” of intralogistics because of how labor-intensive and operationally critical the process is. The vehicle platform was adapted for this task and successfully completed a proof of concept at Colruyt in early 2026.

The solution is based on a modified KION pallet truck. Its compact, lightweight design allows it to maneuver in narrow aisles, loading docks and inside trailers. Cameras, safety LiDAR and localization technology enable the vehicle to detect pallets and obstacles and continuously determine its position. This allows it to navigate autonomously, handle pallets and load or unload trailers with minimal human intervention.

Taking It Further

For Colruyt, however, intralogistics technology is not the core business. For KION, it is. The two companies are therefore taking the solution forward together: KION has acquired a 70 percent stake in Colruyt’s R&D subsidiary Smart Innovation NV, while Colruyt retains 30 percent. The goal is to further develop the technology, industrialize it and make it available to a much broader range of customers.

The partnership also illustrates how KION wants to develop and scale new automation technologies. Instead of developing every solution from scratch, KION combines specialized technology and entrepreneurial speed with engineering expertise, industrialization capabilities and global reach.

As Eike Wibrow, Vice President Global Technology Strategy at KION, puts it: “The objective is not simply to add individual products to our portfolio, but to create a repeatable model for identifying, partnering with and scaling technologies that strengthen KION’s overall automation offering.”