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ロボットか人か？

Window and facade cleaning

Rope-access or lift crew (contract) vs Cleaning-drone service

Whirrworkによるモデル推計であり、事実ではありません。 方法論 · 予測の検証記録

人 · 年額$150,000Rope or lift contractor
ロボット · 年額$54,000Drone cleaning service
回収期間immediate
逆転する年すでにBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

アメリカ合衆国 · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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作業量
仮定

Facade square feet cleaned per year (e.g. 60,000 sq ft twice).

仮定

Working hours per day.

仮定

Working days per month.

仮定

Months per year (volume is annual).

人員
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 37-2019.

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).

価格
算出値 Sky PSI (drone cleaning company)

Low-to-mid point of conventional lift/rope bids $0.50-$3.50/sq ft. Source is a drone cleaning company, so treat as their view of the competition.

算出値 Vista Drone Cleaning

Upper end of commercial drone-cleaning published rates ($0.12-$0.25 Miami; $0.25-$0.50 Southern California).

ロボット
仮定

Facade sq ft per drone-hour including setup and moves.

算出値 Lucid Bots

Midpoint of Lucid Bots Sherpa operator subscription $2,950-$4,600/month.

仮定

Pilot certification, insurance and gear to run your own drone.

仮定

Subscription commitment in years.

仮定

Share of working hours flyable (wind, rain, battery swaps).

仮定

Work lost to faults.

仮定

Share still done by rope or lift (recessed windows, detail work, inspection).

仮定

Crew minutes per drone-hour: pilot plus a ground person for the hose and the public.

仮定

kWh per drone-hour.

仮定

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

資金
仮定

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

仮定

Years in the NPV comparison.

仮定

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

仮定

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

仮定

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)

結果

選択肢月額年額Per unit (sq ft)初期費用回収期間Break-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
人 Rope or lift contractor 比較の基準 $12,500$150,000$1.25— — — —
ロボット Drone cleaning service $4,500$54,000$0.45— immediate — $416,012
ロボット Run your own cleaning drone (subscription) $6,961$83,532$0.696$5,000 0.9 か月 2%
Utilisation 6%
 $299,089

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: Drone cleaning service5-year NPV vs baseline: Drone cleaning serviceWorkloadlow value: 30000 → $104,003high value: 500000 → $1,733,382Rope or lift contractorlow value: 0.5 → $105,241high value: 3.5 → $1,348,323Work that stays humanlow value: 0.05 → $494,014high value: 0.4 → $312,009Drone cleaning servicelow value: 0.12 → $469,020high value: 0.5 → $314,073Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → $447,747high value: 0.12 → $378,356Wage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → $405,945high value: 0.0636 → $426,464$416,012low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/window-facade-cleaning/). 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. Whirrworkによるモデル推計であり、事実ではありません。

Chart単位あたりの人件費 (基本), 単位あたりのロボット費用 (基本), 単位あたりのロボット費用 (ロボット：進歩が速い), 単位あたりのロボット費用 (ロボット：進歩が遅い). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/window-facade-cleaning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.$0.00$0.50$1.002026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / sq ftscenario range単位あたりの人件費 (基本)単位あたりのロボット費用 (基本)単位あたりのロボット費用 (ロボット：進歩が速い)単位あたりのロボット費用 (ロボット：進歩が遅い)Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/window-facade-cleaning/). Modelled es…

逆転する年: すでに

What the spreadsheet misses

安全性
Takes people off ropes and lifts for routine washes, the main reason buildings try it.
品質
Soft-wash rinsing is not squeegee-clean glass; ask for before and after photos.
柔軟性
Rope teams also inspect sealant and fix things.
Edge cases
Wind, tall towers, dense downtowns and airspace rules limit drones.
Customer experience
Tenants prefer not having a person at the window.
Jobs and redeployment
Rope access shifts toward inspection and repair.
規制
Drone pilot certification (FAA Part 107 or local equivalent), tethered-flight and water-runoff rules apply.

関連

このページの出典

注記と出典は英語です。英語版が正式な版です。

  1. Conventional lift/rope exterior cleaning bids $0.50-$3.50 per sq ft (for comparison with drone cleaning) Sky PSI (drone cleaning company), 2026-10 · vendor
  2. Drone facade/window cleaning, commercial buildings: $0.12-$0.25 per sq ft Vista Drone Cleaning, 2026-10 · vendor
  3. Lucid Bots Sherpa cleaning drone subscription for operators: $2,950-$4,600 per month Lucid Bots, 2026-10 · vendor
  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