Methodology & Evidence
Our purpose is to explore when automation could be economically justified, not to predict which robot will replace a worker.
Human employment
Annual employer cost = paid weekly hours × paid weeks × hourly wage × (1 + employer on-cost percentage) + other annual costs.
Effective productive hourly rate = annual employer cost ÷ (weekly hours × productive working weeks).
Paid and productive weeks are separate to avoid treating paid holiday as productive labour.
Robot productivity
Available robot hours = scheduled hours × uptime.
Human-equivalent work = available hours × relative task productivity.
Avoided labour hours = equivalent work × economically displaceable percentage.
The percentage of avoided payroll is editable. Not all additional capacity leads to reduced wage expenditure.
Ownership and payback
Initial investment = purchase + delivery + integration + training.
Annual net operating benefit = avoided labour value − annual running costs − supervision.
Simple payback = initial investment ÷ positive annual net operating benefit.
Lifetime net benefit = annual net benefit × useful years − initial investment + residual value.
Simple payback ignores discount rates and assumes constant annual benefits. It is not NPV or IRR.
Affordability threshold
Maximum initial investment = annual net operating benefit × lifespan + residual value.
Maximum purchase price = maximum initial investment − delivery − integration − training.
For a target payback period shorter than useful life, use target years rather than lifespan and do not count residual value.
Negative affordability is displayed as not viable. All costs and wages must use the same currency.
Worked hypothetical example
A robot costs £15,000, needs £2,000 of setup, and creates £8,000 in genuinely avoided annual labour costs after all ongoing costs. Simple payback is £17,000 ÷ £8,000 = 2.125 years.
At a five-year lifespan and zero residual value, maximum affordable total investment is £8,000 × 5 = £40,000. Maximum purchase price would be £38,000 after the £2,000 setup cost.
This example is illustrative. It is not a verified real robot deployment.
Evidence rules
- Published: a manufacturer or reliable source lists the specific price or specification.
- Manufacturer claim: published specification, not independently measured performance.
- Scenario: editable assumptions about hours, costs, productivity and downtime.
- Unavailable: insufficient reliable information; never replaced with fabricated numbers.
Robot profiles link to sources and show their review dates. Model-level hourly economics are not considered proven without task-specific independent data.
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