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Robô ou humano?

End-of-line palletizing

Packer stacking cases by hand vs Cobot palletizing cell

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

Humano · Por anoUS$ 78.952Hand stacking
Robô · Por anoUS$ 31.287Buy a palletizing cell
Prazo de retorno20 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

Cases stacked per day.

Premissa

Line hours per day.

Premissa

Working days per month.

Premissa

Months per year.

Pessoas

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 53-7064.

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.

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Premissa

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

Robô
Premissa

Robot cases per hour relative to a person.

Turnkey FANUC CRX palletizing cell, starting price ($119,850 for a competitor cell).

Premissa

Conveyor tie-in, safety scanners, pattern programming.

Premissa

Yearly maintenance share of price.

Premissa

Useful life in years.

Premissa

Availability (pallet changes).

Premissa

Output lost to faults.

Premissa

Mixed or damaged cases stacked by hand.

Premissa

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

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 (case)Investimento inicialPrazo de retornoBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Hand stacking Referência US$ 6.579US$ 78.952US$ 0,10— — — —
Robô Buy a palletizing cell US$ 2.607US$ 31.287US$ 0,04US$ 104.750 20 meses 18%
Utilisation 64%
US$ 210.238

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 → US$ 11.061high value: 10000 → US$ 750.304Human output per hourlow value: 150 → US$ 330.888high value: 400 → US$ 98.201Hourly wagelow value: 13.952000000000002 → US$ 150.330high value: 20.928 → US$ 270.146Employer on-cost multiplierlow value: 1.2790000000000001 → US$ 178.796high value: 1.579 → US$ 241.680Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → US$ 237.259high value: 0.12 → US$ 178.547Robot purchase pricelow value: 94750 → US$ 210.238high value: 150000 → US$ 164.448Integration and setuplow value: 3000 → US$ 217.238high value: 30000 → US$ 190.238Robot output vs a personlow value: 0.8 → US$ 195.933high value: 2 → US$ 221.683Useful life or contractlow value: 7 → US$ 196.610high value: 15 → US$ 220.838US$ 210.2380low 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. 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/palletizing/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.US$ 0,00US$ 0,025US$ 0,05US$ 0,075US$ 0,102026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / casescenario 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/palletizing/). Modelled estimate, not…

Ano da virada: já

What the spreadsheet misses

Segurança
Repetitive lifting is a classic back-injury job; this is the strongest non-cost case on the list.
Qualidade
Tidier, more stable pallets.
Flexibilidade
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.
Regulamentação
ISO 10218; area scanners for collaborative cells.

Relacionados

Fontes desta página

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

  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