whirrwork
🌐 Traducción automática. El original en inglés es la fuente y puede ser más preciso. Leer en inglés →

¿Robot o humano?

End-of-line palletizing

Packer stacking cases by hand vs Cobot palletizing cell

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

Humano · Al año78.952 US$Hand stacking
Robot · Al año31.287 US$Buy a palletizing cell
Plazo de recuperación20 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

Haz tus propios cálculos

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

Carga de trabajo
Supuesto

Cases stacked per day.

Supuesto

Line hours per day.

Supuesto

Working days per month.

Supuesto

Months per year.

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 53-7064.

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

Cases per person-hour (light cases; heavy ones are slower and harder on backs).

Robot
Supuesto

Robot cases per hour relative to a person.

RobotPalletizer.com PicPac USA

Turnkey FANUC CRX palletizing cell, starting price ($119,850 for a competitor cell).

Supuesto

Conveyor tie-in, safety scanners, pattern programming.

Supuesto

Yearly maintenance share of price.

Supuesto

Useful life in years.

Supuesto

Availability (pallet changes).

Supuesto

Output lost to faults.

Supuesto

Mixed or damaged cases stacked by hand.

Supuesto

Operator minutes per robot-hour (pallet swaps, slip sheets).

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 (case)Inversión inicialPlazo de recuperaciónBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Hand stacking Referencia 6579 US$78.952 US$0,10 US$— — — —
Robot Buy a palletizing cell 2607 US$31.287 US$0,04 US$104.750 US$ 20 meses 18 %
Utilisation 64 %
 210.238 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 a palletizing cell5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a palletizing cellWorkloadlow value: 1000 → 11.061 US$high value: 10000 → 750.304 US$Human output per hourlow value: 150 → 330.888 US$high value: 400 → 98.201 US$Hourly wagelow value: 13.952000000000002 → 150.330 US$high value: 20.928 → 270.146 US$Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 178.796 US$high value: 1.579 → 241.680 US$Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 237.259 US$high value: 0.12 → 178.547 US$Robot purchase pricelow value: 94750 → 210.238 US$high value: 150000 → 164.448 US$Integration and setuplow value: 3000 → 217.238 US$high value: 30000 → 190.238 US$Robot output vs a personlow value: 0.8 → 195.933 US$high value: 2 → 221.683 US$Useful life or contractlow value: 7 → 196.610 US$high value: 15 → 220.838 US$210.238 US$0low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/palletizing/). 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/palletizing/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 US$0,025 US$0,05 US$0,075 US$0,10 US$2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / casescenario 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/palletizing/). Modelled estimate, not…

Año de cruce: ya

What the spreadsheet misses

Seguridad
Repetitive lifting is a classic back-injury job; this is the strongest non-cost case on the list.
Calidad
Tidier, more stable pallets.
Flexibilidad
Frequent SKU changes need easy pattern setup (cobots are good at this).
Edge cases
Bags, irregular or very heavy cases need special grippers.
Customer experience
Fewer damaged shipments.
Jobs and redeployment
High turnover on these roles means automation often fills vacancies rather than replacing people.
Regulación
ISO 10218; area scanners for collaborative cells.

Relacionado

Fuentes de esta página

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

  1. Turnkey FANUC CRX cobot palletizing cell, from $94,750 RobotPalletizer.com, 2026-10 · vendor
  2. Complete cobot palletizer cell $119,850 PicPac USA, 2026-10 · vendor
  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