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Robot ou humain ?

End-of-line palletizing

Packer stacking cases by hand vs Cobot palletizing cell

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

Humain · Par an78 952 $USHand stacking
Robot · Par an31 287 $USBuy a palletizing cell
Délai de retour sur investissement20 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

Cases stacked per day.

Hypothèse

Line 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 53-7064.

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).

Hypothèse

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

Robot
Hypothèse

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).

Hypothèse

Conveyor tie-in, safety scanners, pattern programming.

Hypothèse

Yearly maintenance share of price.

Hypothèse

Useful life in years.

Hypothèse

Availability (pallet changes).

Hypothèse

Output lost to faults.

Hypothèse

Mixed or damaged cases stacked by hand.

Hypothèse

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

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 (case)Coût initialDélai de retour sur investissementBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humain Hand stacking Référence 6 579 $US78 952 $US0,10 $US— — — —
Robot Buy a palletizing cell 2 607 $US31 287 $US0,04 $US104 750 $US 20 mois 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 $UShigh value: 10000 → 750 304 $USHuman output per hourlow value: 150 → 330 888 $UShigh value: 400 → 98 201 $USHourly wagelow value: 13.952000000000002 → 150 330 $UShigh value: 20.928 → 270 146 $USEmployer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 178 796 $UShigh value: 1.579 → 241 680 $USFinancing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 237 259 $UShigh value: 0.12 → 178 547 $USRobot purchase pricelow value: 94750 → 210 238 $UShigh value: 150000 → 164 448 $USIntegration and setuplow value: 3000 → 217 238 $UShigh value: 30000 → 190 238 $USRobot output vs a personlow value: 0.8 → 195 933 $UShigh value: 2 → 221 683 $USUseful life or contractlow value: 7 → 196 610 $UShigh value: 15 → 220 838 $US210 238 $US0low 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. 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/palletizing/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $US0,025 $US0,05 $US0,075 $US0,10 $US2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / casescenario 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/palletizing/). Modelled estimate, not…

Année de bascule: déjà

What the spreadsheet misses

Sécurité
Repetitive lifting is a classic back-injury job; this is the strongest non-cost case on the list.
Qualité
Tidier, more stable pallets.
Flexibilité
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.
Réglementation
ISO 10218; area scanners for collaborative cells.

Voir aussi

Sources de cette page

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

  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