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¿Robot o humano?

Hospital deliveries

Porter / orderly making runs vs Autonomous hospital delivery robot (TUG-class)

Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos. Metodología · Historial de aciertos

Humano · Al año255.923 US$Porter runs
Robot · Al año151.985 US$Lease delivery robots
Plazo de recuperación3 meses
Año de cruceyaBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

Estados Unidos · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Carga de trabajo
Supuesto

Deliveries per day (meds, linens, specimens, meals).

Supuesto

Operating hours per day.

Supuesto

Every day.

Supuesto

Months per year.

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 31-1132.

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).

Supuesto

Deliveries per porter-hour including waiting for lifts.

Robot
Supuesto

Robot deliveries per hour relative to a porter (slower, but no breaks).

Calculado Becker's Hospital Review via Aethon

Midpoint of $75,000-$140,000 purchase prices reported in 2015.

Calculado The Wall Street Journal via Aethon

Midpoint of $1,500-$2,000/month lease reported in 2014-2015. Old figures: ask for a current quote.

Supuesto

Lift and door interfaces, Wi-Fi survey, charging bays. Often the hardest part in older buildings.

Supuesto

Yearly service contract share of price (owned).

Supuesto

Useful life in years.

Supuesto

Availability after charging.

Supuesto

Runs lost to faults.

Supuesto

Deliveries that stay human: STAT runs, patient-facing handovers, odd items.

Supuesto

Staff minutes per robot-hour loading and unloading (beyond what a porter run also needs).

Supuesto

kWh per robot-hour.

Supuesto

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

Finanzas
Supuesto

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

Supuesto

Years in the NPV comparison.

Supuesto

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

Supuesto

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

Supuesto

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)

Resultados

OpciónAl mesAl añoPer unit (delivery)Inversión inicialPlazo de recuperaciónBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Porter runs Referencia 21.327 US$255.923 US$8,77 US$— — — —
Robot Buy delivery robots
Robots needed: 2
 14.398 US$172.780 US$5,92 US$240.000 US$ 22 meses 31 %
Utilisation 69 %
 384.462 US$
Robot Lease delivery robots
Robots needed: 2
 12.665 US$151.985 US$5,21 US$25.000 US$ 2.8 meses 21 %
Utilisation 69 %
 473.978 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: Lease delivery robots5-year NPV vs baseline: Lease delivery robotsWorkloadlow value: 30 → 140.540 US$high value: 300 → 1.975.630 US$Human output per hourlow value: 2 → 723.468 US$high value: 5 → 291.648 US$Work that stays humanlow value: 0.1 → 665.862 US$high value: 0.5 → 368.402 US$Hourly wagelow value: 14.728000000000002 → 339.135 US$high value: 22.092 → 608.822 US$Robot output vs a personlow value: 0.5 → 326.255 US$high value: 1.2 → 594.406 US$Supervisionlow value: 3 → 523.846 US$high value: 15 → 324.374 US$Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 403.207 US$high value: 1.579 → 544.750 US$Lease per robot per monthlow value: 1500 → 498.638 US$high value: 2500 → 400.001 US$Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 512.975 US$high value: 0.12 → 427.772 US$473.978 US$low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/hospital-delivery/). 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. Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos.

ChartCosto humano por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance rápido), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance lento). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/hospital-delivery/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 US$2,50 US$5,00 US$7,50 US$10,00 US$2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / deliveryscenario rangeCosto humano por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/hospital-delivery/). Modelled estimat…

Año de cruce: ya

What the spreadsheet misses

Seguridad
Locked drawers with fingerprint access improve chain of custody for controlled drugs.
Calidad
One hospital reported delivery reliability up 23% (WSJ, 2014).
Flexibilidad
Porters also move patients, which these robots never do.
Edge cases
Busy lifts and corridors, old buildings without automated doors.
Customer experience
Staff get used to them quickly; patients barely notice.
Jobs and redeployment
Usually framed as freeing nurses from fetching; porter roles shift to patient transport.
Regulación
Medication handling rules; fire-door and lift integration needs facilities sign-off.

Relacionado

Fuentes de esta página

Las notas y las fuentes están en inglés; la versión en inglés es la de referencia.

  1. Hospitals have purchased TUGs for $75,000-$140,000; leases $1,500-$2,000/month (Becker's Hospital Review, reproduced by Aethon) Becker's Hospital Review via Aethon, 2015-03-31
  2. Tug robots leased for $1,500-$2,000 a month; University of Maryland Medical Center per-trip cost $2.40 by robot vs $5.50 by hand (WSJ, Feb 2014, reproduced by Aethon) The Wall Street Journal via Aethon, 2014-02-23
  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