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Robô ou humano?

Hospital deliveries

Porter / orderly making runs vs Autonomous hospital delivery robot (TUG-class)

Estimativas modeladas pela Whirrwork, não fatos. Metodologia · Histórico de acertos

Humano · Por anoUS$ 255.923Porter runs
Robô · Por anoUS$ 151.985Lease delivery robots
Prazo de retorno3 meses
Ano da viradajáBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

Estados Unidos · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Volume de trabalho
Premissa

Deliveries per day (meds, linens, specimens, meals).

Premissa

Operating hours per day.

Premissa

Every day.

Premissa

Months per year.

Pessoas
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 31-1132.

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).

Premissa

Deliveries per porter-hour including waiting for lifts.

Robô
Premissa

Robot deliveries per hour relative to a porter (slower, but no breaks).

Calculado Becker's Hospital Review via Aethon

Midpoint of $75,000-$140,000 purchase prices reported in 2015.

Calculado The Wall Street Journal via Aethon

Midpoint of $1,500-$2,000/month lease reported in 2014-2015. Old figures: ask for a current quote.

Premissa

Lift and door interfaces, Wi-Fi survey, charging bays. Often the hardest part in older buildings.

Premissa

Yearly service contract share of price (owned).

Premissa

Useful life in years.

Premissa

Availability after charging.

Premissa

Runs lost to faults.

Premissa

Deliveries that stay human: STAT runs, patient-facing handovers, odd items.

Premissa

Staff minutes per robot-hour loading and unloading (beyond what a porter run also needs).

Premissa

kWh per robot-hour.

Premissa

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

Finanças
Premissa

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

Premissa

Years in the NPV comparison.

Premissa

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

Premissa

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

Premissa

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)

Resultados

OpçãoPor mêsPor anoPer unit (delivery)Investimento inicialPrazo de retornoBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Porter runs Referência US$ 21.327US$ 255.923US$ 8,77— — — —
Robô Buy delivery robots
Robots needed: 2
 US$ 14.398US$ 172.780US$ 5,92US$ 240.000 22 meses 31%
Utilisation 69%
 US$ 384.462
Robô Lease delivery robots
Robots needed: 2
 US$ 12.665US$ 151.985US$ 5,21US$ 25.000 2.8 meses 21%
Utilisation 69%
 US$ 473.978

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: Lease delivery robots5-year NPV vs baseline: Lease delivery robotsWorkloadlow value: 30 → US$ 140.540high value: 300 → US$ 1.975.630Human output per hourlow value: 2 → US$ 723.468high value: 5 → US$ 291.648Work that stays humanlow value: 0.1 → US$ 665.862high value: 0.5 → US$ 368.402Hourly wagelow value: 14.728000000000002 → US$ 339.135high value: 22.092 → US$ 608.822Robot output vs a personlow value: 0.5 → US$ 326.255high value: 1.2 → US$ 594.406Supervisionlow value: 3 → US$ 523.846high value: 15 → US$ 324.374Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → US$ 403.207high value: 1.579 → US$ 544.750Lease per robot per monthlow value: 1500 → US$ 498.638high value: 2500 → US$ 400.001Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → US$ 512.975high value: 0.12 → US$ 427.772US$ 473.978low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/hospital-delivery/). 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. Estimativas modeladas pela Whirrwork, não fatos.

ChartCusto humano por unidade (Base), Custo do robô por unidade (Base), Custo do robô por unidade (Robôs: avanço rápido), Custo do robô por unidade (Robôs: avanço lento). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/hospital-delivery/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.US$ 0,00US$ 2,50US$ 5,00US$ 7,50US$ 10,002026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / deliveryscenario rangeCusto humano por unidade (Base)Custo do robô por unidade (Base)Custo do robô por unidade (Robôs:…Custo do robô por unidade (Robôs:…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/hospital-delivery/). Modelled estimat…

Ano da virada: já

What the spreadsheet misses

Segurança
Locked drawers with fingerprint access improve chain of custody for controlled drugs.
Qualidade
One hospital reported delivery reliability up 23% (WSJ, 2014).
Flexibilidade
Porters also move patients, which these robots never do.
Edge cases
Busy lifts and corridors, old buildings without automated doors.
Customer experience
Staff get used to them quickly; patients barely notice.
Jobs and redeployment
Usually framed as freeing nurses from fetching; porter roles shift to patient transport.
Regulamentação
Medication handling rules; fire-door and lift integration needs facilities sign-off.

Relacionados

Fontes desta página

As notas e as fontes estão em inglês; a versão em inglês é a referência.

  1. Hospitals have purchased TUGs for $75,000-$140,000; leases $1,500-$2,000/month (Becker's Hospital Review, reproduced by Aethon) Becker's Hospital Review via Aethon, 2015-03-31
  2. Tug robots leased for $1,500-$2,000 a month; University of Maryland Medical Center per-trip cost $2.40 by robot vs $5.50 by hand (WSJ, Feb 2014, reproduced by Aethon) The Wall Street Journal via Aethon, 2014-02-23
  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