Automated handling[edit]
Whenever technically and economically feasible, equipment can be used to reduce and sometimes replace the need to manually handle material. Most existing material handling equipment is only semi-automated because a human operator is needed for tasks like loading/unloading and driving that are difficult and/or too costly to fully automate, although ongoing advances in sensing, machine intelligence, and robotics have made it possible to fully automate an increasing number of handling tasks.[5] A rough guide to determine how much can be spent for automated equipment that would replace one material handler is to consider that, with benefits, the median moving machine operator costs a company $45,432 per year.[14] Assuming a real interest rate of 1.7%[15] and a service life of 5 years[16] for the equipment with no salvage value,[17] a company should be willing to pay up to
to purchase automated equipment to replace one worker.[18] In many cases, automated equipment is not as flexible as a human operator, both with respect to not being able to do a particular task as well as a human and not being able to be as easily redeployed to do other tasks as needs change.