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Robot ou humain ?

CNC / injection machine tending

Operator loading and unloading a machine vs Cobot machine tending cell

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

Humain · Par an119 635 $USOperator tending
Robot · Par an45 523 $USBuy a cobot cell
Délai de retour sur investissement11 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

Hours per day the machine needs tending.

Hypothèse

Shift hours per day.

Hypothèse

Working days per month.

Hypothèse

Months per year.

Personnel
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 53-7063.

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 operator-hour.

Robot
Hypothèse

The machine cycle sets the pace, so one robot-hour covers one operator-hour.

Calculé Automation Distribution

Midpoint of UR5e arm listings $39,083-$43,544 (arm only).

Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing

Reported RaaS rate for a six-axis machine-tending robot, per robot-hour (provider handles integration).

Hypothèse THG Automation (integrator)

Gripper, fixtures, safety, guarding, programming. Integrators say the arm is often half or less of the total.

THG Automation (integrator)

Integrator rule of thumb: 3-5% of system price per year.

Hypothèse

Useful life in years.

Hypothèse

Availability.

Hypothèse

Hours lost to faults and jams.

Hypothèse

Changeovers, first-article checks and odd parts that need a person.

Hypothèse

Operator minutes per robot-hour (loading trays, inspections, restarts).

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 (tending hour)Coût initialDélai de retour sur investissementBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humain Operator tending Référence 9 970 $US119 635 $US28,32 $US— — — —
Robot Buy a cobot cell 3 794 $US45 523 $US10,78 $US81 314 $US 11 mois 17 %
Utilisation 98 %
 322 817 $US
Robot Robot by the hour (RaaS) 6 225 $US74 698 $US17,68 $US40 000 $US 9.2 mois 13 %
Utilisation 98 %
 204 283 $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 cobot cell5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a cobot cellWorkloadlow value: 8 → 122 555 $UShigh value: 24 → 485 372 $USHourly wagelow value: 15.856000000000002 → 242 571 $UShigh value: 23.784 → 403 062 $USSupervisionlow value: 3 → 362 780 $UShigh value: 20 → 226 906 $USIntegration and setuplow value: 15000 → 347 817 $UShigh value: 120000 → 242 817 $USEmployer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 280 701 $UShigh value: 1.579 → 364 933 $USWork that stays humanlow value: 0.05 → 307 361 $UShigh value: 0.3 → 233 812 $USFinancing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 354 904 $UShigh value: 0.12 → 284 885 $USRobot purchase pricelow value: 25000 → 337 706 $UShigh value: 60000 → 305 762 $USWage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → 308 284 $UShigh value: 0.0636 → 337 907 $US322 817 $USlow valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/machine-tending/). 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/machine-tending/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $US10,00 $US20,00 $US30,00 $US2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / tending 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/machine-tending/). Modelled estimate,…

Année de bascule: déjà

What the spreadsheet misses

Sécurité
Removes repetitive reaching into machines; risk assessment is still required for cobots.
Qualité
Consistent load positions; fewer scrapped parts from mis-seating.
Flexibilité
High-mix, low-volume shops pay for every changeover.
Edge cases
Chips, coolant and parts that tangle defeat grippers.
Customer experience
Lights-out second shifts shorten lead times.
Jobs and redeployment
Operators become cell technicians; the evidence on robots and local employment is mixed and depends on sector (see our insights).
Réglementation
ISO 10218 and ISO/TS 15066 for collaborative operation; CE marking in the EU.

Voir aussi

Sources de cette page

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

  1. Universal Robots UR5e cobot arm $39,083-$43,544 (US distributor listing) Automation Distribution, 2026-10 · vendor
  2. Cobot welding price breakdown: integration/commissioning $15,000-$40,000; base system 50-60% of total investment; maintenance 3-5% per year THG Automation (integrator), 2026 · vendor
  3. RaaS machine tending: six-axis robot at about $10 per hour (Formic) Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing, 2026-10
  4. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  5. 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
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  9. 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
  10. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  11. 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
  12. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  13. 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
  14. 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