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¿Robot o humano?

Pallet moving

Forklift or pallet-truck operator vs Autonomous pallet mover (AMR)

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

Humano · Al año140.339 US$Operator with pallet truck
Robot · Al año77.430 US$Buy an AMR pallet mover
Plazo de recuperación14 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

Pallet moves per day on fixed routes (dock to racking, line-side).

Supuesto

Operating hours per day.

Supuesto

Operating days per month.

Supuesto

Active months per year.

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 53-7051.

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

Moves per operator-hour on these routes.

Supuesto

Truck or forklift cost per operator-hour. Default 0 means the comparison ignores the forklift you might retire; add yours.

Robot
Supuesto

AMR moves per hour relative to a person: slower travel, no shortcuts.

Jtec Products (dealer)

Big Joe Pallet Mover AMR list price, including deployment, training and 3-year software.

Supuesto

Site prep, floor marking and change management on top of the vendor package.

Supuesto

Yearly maintenance and software after the included period, share of price.

Supuesto

Useful life in years.

Supuesto

Availability after charging.

Supuesto

Work lost to faults.

Supuesto

Moves that need a person (damaged pallets, ad-hoc moves, trailers).

Supuesto

Staff minutes per robot-hour (calling moves, clearing blockages).

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 (pallet move)Inversión inicialPlazo de recuperaciónBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Operator with pallet truck Referencia 11.695 US$140.339 US$2,66 US$— — — —
Robot Buy an AMR pallet mover
Robots needed: 2
 6452 US$77.430 US$1,47 US$95.000 US$ 14 meses 19 %
Utilisation 66 %
 288.884 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: Buy an AMR pallet mover5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy an AMR pallet moverWorkloadlow value: 60 → 62.740 US$high value: 600 → 978.777 US$Human output per hourlow value: 8 → 486.888 US$high value: 20 → 181.543 US$Work that stays humanlow value: 0.1 → 368.086 US$high value: 0.5 → 207.943 US$Hourly wagelow value: 17.856 → 209.101 US$high value: 26.784 → 368.667 US$Supervisionlow value: 2 → 322.369 US$high value: 12 → 210.753 US$Human equipment cost per hourlow value: 0 → 288.884 US$high value: 8 → 390.830 US$Robot output vs a personlow value: 0.5 → 265.398 US$high value: 1 → 357.561 US$Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 247.010 US$high value: 1.579 → 330.758 US$Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 319.428 US$high value: 0.12 → 252.781 US$288.884 US$low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/pallet-moving/). 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/pallet-moving/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 US$1,00 US$2,00 US$3,00 US$2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / pallet movescenario 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/pallet-moving/). Modelled estimate, n…

Año de cruce: ya

What the spreadsheet misses

Seguridad
Forklifts are a leading cause of serious warehouse injuries; slow, sensor-limited AMRs on fixed routes reduce exposure.
Calidad
Predictable cycle times; fewer racking hits.
Flexibilidad
People handle trailers, damaged loads and odd jobs. AMRs want stable routes.
Edge cases
Mixed traffic and blocked aisles stop robots; fix the layout first.
Customer experience
Invisible.
Jobs and redeployment
Operators often move to exception handling and loading; budget retraining.
Regulación
ISO 3691-4 / ANSI B56.5 for driverless trucks; local workplace rules apply.

Relacionado

Fuentes de esta página

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

  1. Big Joe Pallet Mover AMR brochure: $45,000 each incl. deployment, training, annual visit and 3-year software subscription Jtec Products (dealer), 2024-08-14 · vendor
  2. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  7. 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
  8. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  9. 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
  10. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  11. 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
  12. 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