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Robot ou humain ?

Pallet moving

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

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

Humain · Par an140 339 $USOperator with pallet truck
Robot · Par an77 430 $USBuy an AMR pallet mover
Délai de retour sur investissement14 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

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

Hypothèse

Operating hours per day.

Hypothèse

Operating days per month.

Hypothèse

Active months per year.

Personnel
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).

Hypothèse

Moves per operator-hour on these routes.

Hypothèse

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

Robot
Hypothèse

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.

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

Useful life in years.

Hypothèse

Availability after charging.

Hypothèse

Work lost to faults.

Hypothèse

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

Hypothèse

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

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 (pallet move)Coût initialDélai de retour sur investissementBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humain Operator with pallet truck Référence 11 695 $US140 339 $US2,66 $US— — — —
Robot Buy an AMR pallet mover
Robots needed: 2
 6 452 $US77 430 $US1,47 $US95 000 $US 14 mois 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 $UShigh value: 600 → 978 777 $USHuman output per hourlow value: 8 → 486 888 $UShigh value: 20 → 181 543 $USWork that stays humanlow value: 0.1 → 368 086 $UShigh value: 0.5 → 207 943 $USHourly wagelow value: 17.856 → 209 101 $UShigh value: 26.784 → 368 667 $USSupervisionlow value: 2 → 322 369 $UShigh value: 12 → 210 753 $USHuman equipment cost per hourlow value: 0 → 288 884 $UShigh value: 8 → 390 830 $USRobot output vs a personlow value: 0.5 → 265 398 $UShigh value: 1 → 357 561 $USEmployer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 247 010 $UShigh value: 1.579 → 330 758 $USFinancing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 319 428 $UShigh value: 0.12 → 252 781 $US288 884 $USlow 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. 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/pallet-moving/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $US1,00 $US2,00 $US3,00 $US2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / pallet movescenario 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/pallet-moving/). Modelled estimate, n…

Année de bascule: déjà

What the spreadsheet misses

Sécurité
Forklifts are a leading cause of serious warehouse injuries; slow, sensor-limited AMRs on fixed routes reduce exposure.
Qualité
Predictable cycle times; fewer racking hits.
Flexibilité
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.
Réglementation
ISO 3691-4 / ANSI B56.5 for driverless trucks; local workplace rules apply.

Voir aussi

Sources de cette page

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

  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