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Robot ou humain ?

Restaurant food running

Food runner / busser vs Serving robot (staff load and hand over)

Estimations modélisées par Whirrwork, pas des faits. Méthodologie · Bilan des prévisions

Humain · Par an84 059 $USFood runner
Robot · Par an46 833 $USLease a serving robot
Délai de retour sur investissement0 mois
Année de basculedéjàBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

États-Unis · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Charge de travail
Hypothèse

Runner hours needed per day (lunch and dinner).

Hypothèse

Opening hours per day.

Hypothèse

Open days per month.

Hypothèse

Months per year.

Personnel
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 35-9011.

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).

Hypothèse

One runner-hour.

Robot
Hypothèse

Share of a runner-hour of work one robot-hour replaces (it carries; servers still serve).

RobotLAB (reseller)

Pudu BellaBot purchase.

RobotLAB (reseller)

BellaBot RaaS lease per month.

Hypothèse

Mapping the dining room and staff training.

Hypothèse

Yearly maintenance share of price.

Hypothèse

Useful life in years.

Hypothèse

Availability.

Hypothèse

Work lost to faults.

Hypothèse

Running the robot cannot do: stairs, terraces, crowded floors, big parties.

Hypothèse

Staff minutes per robot-hour beyond normal serving (loading, clearing paths).

Hypothèse

kWh per robot-hour.

Hypothèse

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

Finances
Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

Years in the NPV comparison.

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

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)

Résultats

OptionPar moisPar anPer unit (runner hour)Coût initialDélai de retour sur investissementBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humain Food runner Référence 7 005 $US84 059 $US23,35 $US— — — —
Robot Buy a serving robot
Robots needed: 2
 3 935 $US47 222 $US13,12 $US29 500 $US 7.7 mois 14 %
Utilisation 65 %
 168 279 $US
Robot Lease a serving robot
Robots needed: 2
 3 903 $US46 833 $US13,01 $US500 $US 0.2 mois 14 %
Utilisation 65 %
 169 378 $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 a serving robot5-year NPV vs baseline: Lease a serving robotWorkloadlow value: 4 → 63 417 $UShigh value: 24 → 423 343 $USWork that stays humanlow value: 0.1 → 229 441 $UShigh value: 0.5 → 129 486 $USRobot output vs a personlow value: 0.3 → 119 880 $UShigh value: 0.8 → 206 045 $USHourly wagelow value: 13.072000000000001 → 127 271 $UShigh value: 19.608 → 211 484 $USEmployer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 147 279 $UShigh value: 1.579 → 191 477 $USSubscription per robot per mo…low value: 409 → 169 378 $UShigh value: 800 → 130 811 $USFinancing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 182 602 $UShigh value: 0.12 → 153 705 $USWage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → 161 752 $UShigh value: 0.0636 → 177 296 $USElectricity price per kWhlow value: 0.08 → 169 523 $UShigh value: 0.3 → 169 067 $US169 378 $USlow valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/food-runner/). 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. Estimations modélisées par Whirrwork, pas des faits.

ChartCoût humain par unité (Base), Coût robot par unité (Base), Coût robot par unité (Robots : progrès rapide), Coût robot par unité (Robots : progrès lent). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/food-runner/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $US10,00 $US20,00 $US2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / runner hourscenario rangeCoût humain par unité (Base)Coût robot par unité (Base)Coût robot par unité (Robots : pr…Coût robot par unité (Robots : pr…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/food-runner/). Modelled estimate, not…

Année de bascule: déjà

What the spreadsheet misses

Sécurité
Fewer heavy trays carried across a busy floor; robots are a trip hazard for guests who are not looking.
Qualité
Hot food arrives at robot speed, which is not fast.
Flexibilité
A runner also refills water, clears and charms.
Edge cases
Narrow aisles, steps, outdoor seating.
Customer experience
Novelty helps family restaurants and hurts fine dining.
Jobs and redeployment
Typical use is fewer runner shifts and servers spending more time at tables; tipped wages make the US maths odd (the BLS median includes tipped-wage states).
Réglementation
None specific; food-hygiene rules apply to cleaning the trays.

Voir aussi

Sources de cette page

Les notes et les sources sont en anglais ; la version anglaise fait foi.

  1. Pudu BellaBot: buy $14,500; RaaS lease $409/month RobotLAB (reseller), 2026-10 · 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. UK serving robot rental £490-£590/month on a 24-month term incl. maintenance Hutech Robotics, 2026-10 · vendor
  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