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Roboter oder Mensch?

Warehouse inventory counting

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

Modellschätzungen von Whirrwork, keine Fakten. Methodik · Trefferbilanz

Mensch · Pro Jahr153.903 $Manual cycle counts
Roboter · Pro Jahr66.321 $Inventory drone as a service
Amortisation1 Monate
Jahr der KostenwendebereitsBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

Vereinigte Staaten · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

Mit eigenen Zahlen rechnen

Change anything. Results update as you type and stay in your browser; nothing is stored or sent. Works offline after your first visit.

Arbeitsmenge
Annahme

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

Annahme

Hours per day the drone may fly.

Annahme

Days per month.

Annahme

Months per year.

Personal
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).

Annahme

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

Annahme

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

Roboter
Annahme

Locations per drone-hour.

Abgeleitet Actel Robotics progressivelogistics.com

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

Annahme

WMS integration and site setup.

Annahme

Contract years.

Annahme

Availability (charging).

Annahme

Work lost to faults.

Annahme

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

Annahme

Staff minutes per drone-hour.

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kWh per drone-hour.

Annahme

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

Finanzen
Annahme

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

Annahme

Years in the NPV comparison.

Annahme

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

Annahme

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

Annahme

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)

Ergebnisse

OptionPro MonatPro JahrPer unit (location)EinmalkostenAmortisationBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Mensch Manual cycle counts Vergleichsbasis 12.825 $153.903 $0,428 $— — — —
Roboter Inventory drone as a service 5.527 $66.321 $0,184 $5.000 $ 0.7 Monate 21 %
Utilisation 64 %
 408.189 $

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 → -79.981 $high value: 150000 → 2.233.558 $Human output per hourlow value: 30 → 1.006.597 $high value: 120 → 108.985 $Hourly wagelow value: 14.36 → 290.975 $high value: 21.54 → 525.403 $Robot output per hourlow value: 80 → 224.545 $high value: 300 → 414.491 $Human equipment cost per hourlow value: 0 → 408.189 $high value: 8 → 578.312 $Work that stays humanlow value: 0.05 → 440.733 $high value: 0.3 → 278.010 $Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 346.670 $high value: 1.579 → 469.708 $Subscription per robot per mo…low value: 2500 → 457.507 $high value: 4500 → 358.870 $Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 440.556 $high value: 0.12 → 369.841 $408.189 $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. Modellschätzungen von Whirrwork, keine Fakten.

ChartPersonalkosten pro Einheit (Basis), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Basis), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Roboter: schneller Fortschritt), Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Roboter: langsamer Fortschritt). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/inventory-scanning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $0,10 $0,20 $0,30 $0,40 $2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / locationscenario rangePersonalkosten pro Einheit (Basis)Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Basis)Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Robote…Roboterkosten pro Einheit (Robote…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/inventory-scanning/). Modelled estima…

Jahr der Kostenwende: bereits

What the spreadsheet misses

Sicherheit
Fewer people raised on lifts to read labels at height.
Qualität
More frequent counts; accuracy depends on labels.
Flexibilität
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.
Regulierung
Indoor flight is usually unregulated; workplace safety rules apply.

Siehe auch

Quellen auf dieser Seite

Hinweise und Quellen sind auf Englisch; maßgeblich ist die englische Fassung.

  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