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Robot atau manusia?

Warehouse inventory counting

Cycle counter with a scanner and lift vs Autonomous inventory drone (RaaS)

Estimasi model Whirrwork, bukan fakta. Metodologi · Rekam jejak

Manusia · Per tahunUS$153.903Manual cycle counts
Robot · Per tahunUS$66.321Inventory drone as a service
Masa balik modal1 bulan
Tahun titik temu biayasudahBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

Amerika Serikat · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Beban kerja
Asumsi

Pallet locations counted per month (e.g. 15,000 locations twice).

Asumsi

Hours per day the drone may fly.

Asumsi

Days per month.

Asumsi

Months per year.

Tenaga kerja
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 53-7065.

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).

Asumsi

Locations per person-hour with an order picker or reach truck for high bays.

Asumsi

Lift truck cost per counter-hour. Default 0 ignores it.

Robot
Asumsi

Locations per drone-hour.

Hasil hitungan Actel Robotics progressivelogistics.com

Corvus One small-DC quotes $2,500-$4,500/month; Langham reported about $4,000/month per Gather AI drone.

Asumsi

WMS integration and site setup.

Asumsi

Contract years.

Asumsi

Availability (charging).

Asumsi

Work lost to faults.

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Locations that still need a person (unreadable labels, exceptions to resolve).

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Staff minutes per drone-hour.

Asumsi

kWh per drone-hour.

Asumsi

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

Keuangan
Asumsi

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

Asumsi

Years in the NPV comparison.

Asumsi

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

Asumsi

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

Asumsi

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)

Hasil

OpsiPer bulanPer tahunPer unit (location)Biaya awalMasa balik modalBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Manusia Manual cycle counts Pembanding US$12.825US$153.903US$0,428— — — —
Robot Inventory drone as a service US$5.527US$66.321US$0,184US$5.000 0.7 bulan 21%
Utilisation 64%
 US$408.189

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: Inventory drone as a service5-year NPV vs baseline: Inventory drone as a serviceWorkloadlow value: 5000 → -US$79.981high value: 150000 → US$2.233.558Human output per hourlow value: 30 → US$1.006.597high value: 120 → US$108.985Hourly wagelow value: 14.36 → US$290.975high value: 21.54 → US$525.403Robot output per hourlow value: 80 → US$224.545high value: 300 → US$414.491Human equipment cost per hourlow value: 0 → US$408.189high value: 8 → US$578.312Work that stays humanlow value: 0.05 → US$440.733high value: 0.3 → US$278.010Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → US$346.670high value: 1.579 → US$469.708Subscription per robot per mo…low value: 2500 → US$457.507high value: 4500 → US$358.870Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → US$440.556high value: 0.12 → US$369.841US$408.1890low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/inventory-scanning/). 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. Estimasi model Whirrwork, bukan fakta.

ChartBiaya manusia per unit (Dasar), Biaya robot per unit (Dasar), Biaya robot per unit (Robot: kemajuan cepat), Biaya robot per unit (Robot: kemajuan lambat). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/inventory-scanning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.US$0,00US$0,10US$0,20US$0,30US$0,402026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / locationscenario rangeBiaya manusia per unit (Dasar)Biaya robot per unit (Dasar)Biaya robot per unit (Robot: kema…Biaya robot per unit (Robot: kema…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/inventory-scanning/). Modelled estima…

Tahun titik temu biaya: sudah

What the spreadsheet misses

Keselamatan
Fewer people raised on lifts to read labels at height.
Kualitas
More frequent counts; accuracy depends on labels.
Fleksibilitas
People also fix the discrepancies they find.
Edge cases
Blocked aisles, shrink-wrap glare and missing labels.
Customer experience
Fewer stockouts from phantom inventory.
Jobs and redeployment
Walmart dropped shelf-scanning robots in 2020 partly because staff could do the checks during other work: count what your people already do.
Regulasi
Indoor flight is usually unregulated; workplace safety rules apply.

Terkait

Sumber di halaman ini

Catatan dan sumber berbahasa Inggris; versi bahasa Inggris menjadi acuan.

  1. Corvus One inventory drone, small distribution centre (<150,000 sq ft): about $2,500-$4,500 per month RaaS Actel Robotics, 2026 · vendor
  2. Langham Logistics pays about $4,000 per month per Gather AI inventory drone Indianapolis Business Journal via Progressive Logistics, 2026-10
  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