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روبوت أم إنسان؟

Warehouse inventory counting

Cycle counter with a scanner and lift vs Autonomous inventory drone (RaaS)

تقديرات من نموذج Whirrwork، وليست حقائق. المنهجية · سجل التوقعات

إنسان · سنويًا‏١٥٣٬٩٠٣ US$Manual cycle counts
روبوت · سنويًا‏٦٦٬٣٢١ US$Inventory drone as a service
فترة الاسترداد1 أشهر
سنة التقاطعالآنBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

الولايات المتحدة · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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افتراض

Pallet locations counted per month (e.g. 15,000 locations twice).

افتراض

Hours per day the drone may fly.

افتراض

Days per month.

افتراض

Months per year.

العمالة
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 53-7065.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

افتراض

Locations per person-hour with an order picker or reach truck for high bays.

افتراض

Lift truck cost per counter-hour. Default 0 ignores it.

الروبوت
افتراض

Locations per drone-hour.

مشتق Actel Robotics progressivelogistics.com

Corvus One small-DC quotes $2,500-$4,500/month; Langham reported about $4,000/month per Gather AI drone.

افتراض

WMS integration and site setup.

افتراض

Contract years.

افتراض

Availability (charging).

افتراض

Work lost to faults.

افتراض

Locations that still need a person (unreadable labels, exceptions to resolve).

افتراض

Staff minutes per drone-hour.

افتراض

kWh per drone-hour.

افتراض

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

التمويل
افتراض

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

افتراض

Years in the NPV comparison.

افتراض

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

افتراض

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

افتراض

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

النتائج

الخيارشهريًاسنويًاPer unit (location)التكلفة الأوليةفترة الاستردادBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
إنسان Manual cycle counts خط الأساس ‏١٢٬٨٢٥ US$‏١٥٣٬٩٠٣ US$‏٠٫٤٢٨ US$— — — —
روبوت Inventory drone as a service ‏٥٬٥٢٧ US$‏٦٦٬٣٢١ US$‏٠٫١٨٤ US$‏٥٬٠٠٠ US$ 0.7 أشهر ٢١٪؜
Utilisation ٦٤٪؜
 ‏٤٠٨٬١٨٩ US$

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Inventory drone as a service5-year NPV vs baseline: Inventory drone as a serviceWorkloadlow value: 5000 → ؜-‏٧٩٬٩٨١ US$high value: 150000 → ‏٢٬٢٣٣٬٥٥٨ US$Human output per hourlow value: 30 → ‏١٬٠٠٦٬٥٩٧ US$high value: 120 → ‏١٠٨٬٩٨٥ US$Hourly wagelow value: 14.36 → ‏٢٩٠٬٩٧٥ US$high value: 21.54 → ‏٥٢٥٬٤٠٣ US$Robot output per hourlow value: 80 → ‏٢٢٤٬٥٤٥ US$high value: 300 → ‏٤١٤٬٤٩١ US$Human equipment cost per hourlow value: 0 → ‏٤٠٨٬١٨٩ US$high value: 8 → ‏٥٧٨٬٣١٢ US$Work that stays humanlow value: 0.05 → ‏٤٤٠٬٧٣٣ US$high value: 0.3 → ‏٢٧٨٬٠١٠ US$Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → ‏٣٤٦٬٦٧٠ US$high value: 1.579 → ‏٤٦٩٬٧٠٨ US$Subscription per robot per mo…low value: 2500 → ‏٤٥٧٬٥٠٧ US$high value: 4500 → ‏٣٥٨٬٨٧٠ US$Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → ‏٤٤٠٬٥٥٦ US$high value: 0.12 → ‏٣٦٩٬٨٤١ US$‏٤٠٨٬١٨٩ US$0low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/inventory-scanning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. تقديرات من نموذج Whirrwork، وليست حقائق.

Chartتكلفة الإنسان لكل وحدة (الأساسي), تكلفة الروبوت لكل وحدة (الأساسي), تكلفة الروبوت لكل وحدة (الروبوتات: تقدّم سريع), تكلفة الروبوت لكل وحدة (الروبوتات: تقدّم بطيء). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/inventory-scanning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.‏٠٫٠٠ US$‏٠٫١٠ US$‏٠٫٢٠ US$‏٠٫٣٠ US$‏٠٫٤٠ US$2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / locationscenario rangeتكلفة الإنسان لكل وحدة (الأساسي)تكلفة الروبوت لكل وحدة (الأساسي)تكلفة الروبوت لكل وحدة (الروبوتات…تكلفة الروبوت لكل وحدة (الروبوتات…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/inventory-scanning/). Modelled estima…

سنة التقاطع: الآن

What the spreadsheet misses

السلامة
Fewer people raised on lifts to read labels at height.
الجودة
More frequent counts; accuracy depends on labels.
المرونة
People also fix the discrepancies they find.
Edge cases
Blocked aisles, shrink-wrap glare and missing labels.
Customer experience
Fewer stockouts from phantom inventory.
Jobs and redeployment
Walmart dropped shelf-scanning robots in 2020 partly because staff could do the checks during other work: count what your people already do.
التنظيم
Indoor flight is usually unregulated; workplace safety rules apply.

ذو صلة

مصادر هذه الصفحة

الملاحظات والمصادر بالإنجليزية، والنص الإنجليزي هو المرجع.

  1. Corvus One inventory drone, small distribution centre (<150,000 sq ft): about $2,500-$4,500 per month RaaS Actel Robotics, 2026 · vendor
  2. Langham Logistics pays about $4,000 per month per Gather AI inventory drone Indianapolis Business Journal via Progressive Logistics, 2026-10
  3. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  4. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  5. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  6. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  7. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  8. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  9. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  10. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  11. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  12. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  13. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013