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Robot ou humain ?

Welding

Manual MIG welder vs Cobot welding system (welder still loads and supervises)

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

Humain · Par an77 986 $USManual welder
Robot · Par an64 428 $USBuy a cobot welder
Délai de retour sur investissement42 mois
Année de basculedéjàBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper. Payback is longer than three years, which is longer than many robot contracts and some robot companies.

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

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Charge de travail
Hypothèse

Manual welding hours of work per day.

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 51-4121.

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 manual welding hour.

Robot
Hypothèse Hirebotics

Output of one cobot-hour relative to a manual welder-hour. The vendor says most shops see 2-4x; we take the low end.

Hirebotics

Hirebotics Cobot Welder complete system, starting price.

Hypothèse THG Automation (integrator)

Fixtures, guarding, training beyond the package. Integrators quote $15,000-$40,000 for un-packaged systems.

THG Automation (integrator)

3-5% of system price per year.

Hypothèse

Useful life in years.

Hypothèse

Arc-ready share of the shift (loading, tip changes).

Hypothèse

Hours lost to faults.

Hypothèse

Welds that stay manual: one-offs, awkward joints, repairs.

Hypothèse

Welder minutes per robot-hour (fixturing, loading, inspecting). Cobot welding is a person plus a robot.

Hypothèse

kWh per hour of welding.

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 (welding hour)Coût initialDélai de retour sur investissementBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humain Manual welder Référence 6 499 $US77 986 $US36,93 $US— — — —
Robot Buy a cobot welder 5 369 $US64 428 $US30,51 $US120 000 $US 42 mois 27 %
Utilisation 41 %
 61 492 $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 welder5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a cobot welderWorkloadlow value: 4 → -24 670 $UShigh value: 16 → 233 817 $USWork that stays humanlow value: 0.1 → 110 728 $UShigh value: 0.6 → -12 361 $USRobot output vs a personlow value: 1.2 → 19 146 $UShigh value: 4 → 93 251 $USRobot purchase pricelow value: 80000 → 84 309 $UShigh value: 160000 → 11 294 $USSupervisionlow value: 15 → 91 884 $UShigh value: 50 → 20 969 $USHourly wagelow value: 20.672 → 26 480 $UShigh value: 31.008 → 96 504 $USEmployer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → 43 117 $UShigh value: 1.579 → 79 868 $USFinancing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 77 769 $UShigh value: 0.12 → 42 483 $USIntegration and setuplow value: 5000 → 71 492 $UShigh value: 40000 → 36 492 $US61 492 $US0low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/welding/). 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/welding/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 $US10,00 $US20,00 $US30,00 $US40,00 $US2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / welding 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/welding/). Modelled estimate, not a f…

Année de bascule: déjà

What the spreadsheet misses

Sécurité
Less fume and arc exposure for the welder; fume extraction is still needed.
Qualité
Repeatable beads on repeat parts; fixturing tolerance decides quality.
Flexibilité
Skilled welders handle the one-offs robots never will.
Edge cases
Poor part fit-up and short runs.
Customer experience
Shorter lead times on repeat orders.
Jobs and redeployment
Welder shortages are the usual reason; welders become programmers and inspectors.
Réglementation
Machinery safety rules; welding codes still require qualified procedures.

Voir aussi

Sources de cette page

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

  1. Cobot Welder starting price $105,000 (complete system incl. UR8 Long, power source, torch, cart, software); "most shops see 2-4x the output" Hirebotics, 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. 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