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High volume or high mix: what the numbers say

Updated at: 14 October 2026

Which robot is right depends less on the robot than on your production. The clearest way I know to show it is to run the same question twice: once for a machine with a few products in long series, and once for a machine with many products in short series.

We did that in our production economics model, with a fixed robot, a collaborative robot and a mobile robot. Both cases below are example calculations, not customer results.

Case 1: three products, high volume

Fixed robotCollaborative robotMobile robot
Share of volume run by the robot100 %100 %100 %
Productivity increase49 %11 %52 %
Gross profit increase per year€110,000€90,000€140,000
Operators freed1.61.61.9

"Operators freed" is how many people the robot releases for other work in the calculation.

Case 1: robots running high volume production, production economy

With few products, all three pay off. The robot runs the whole volume whichever type you choose. A fixed robot is a proven and good choice here. The mobile robot comes out somewhat ahead in this example.

Case 2: 230 products, high mix

Fixed robotCollaborative robotMobile robot
Share of volume run by the robot20 %80 %80 %
Productivity increase49 %9 %49 %
Gross profit increase per year–€120,000€68,000€110,000
Operators freed0.31.21.5

Case 2: robots running high mix and low volume, production economy

With 230 products, the picture changes. Look at the first row. The fixed robot runs only 20 % of the volume, and in this calculation that gives a negative result. The collaborative robot and the mobile robot both run 80 % of the volume. The mobile robot does it with the same productivity gain as the fixed robot.

The share of volume is where the programming time shows up. When a new part takes 10–60 hours to program, only the longest series are worth moving to the robot. With the Dynamic Program Generator, an operator creates a new program in 1–3 minutes, so most of the parts can go to the robot.

How to read your own production

Start with three questions. How many products per machine and year? How long does a typical series run? How many machines could share a robot?

Few products and long series: a fixed cell is often the right answer, and we will say so. Many products and short series: programming time and the ability to move the robot between machines decide the outcome.

If you tell us roughly how many parts you run per machine and year, we can run the same calculation with your own figures, in our production economics model validated by Chalmers University of Technology. Contact us.
Johan Frisk