--- title: "Hidden costs in a robot investment: ROI example | OpiFlex" description: Installation downtime, new products and weeks of waiting rarely appear in a robot investment calculation. Example calculations of what they cost per shift. image: https://blog.opiflex.se/hubfs/Images/Blog%20Images/p09-installation-downtime-cost.png --- [Skip to content](https://blog.opiflex.se/opiflex-blog/the-hidden-costs-in-a-robot-investment#main-content) Zoeken [![](https://blog.opiflex.se/hubfs/OpiFlex%20logo%20PNG%202017-03%20(Small).png)](https://www.opiflex.se/) [Back to the website](https://www.opiflex.se/) # The hidden costs in a robot investment [flexible robotics](https://blog.opiflex.se/opiflex-blog/tag/flexible-robotics) [fenceless safety](https://blog.opiflex.se/opiflex-blog/tag/fenceless-safety) [Production Economics](https://blog.opiflex.se/opiflex-blog/tag/production-economics) Updated at: 14 October 2026 When a robot investment is calculated, the spreadsheet usually holds the price of the cell and the labour it saves. Three costs are harder to see: the production lost while the robot is installed, the cost of adding each new product, and the weeks before the robot is running at all. Below are example calculations from our presentations, with a downtime cost of €150 per hour. Your own figures will differ. The questions are the same. ## Production lost during installation A traditional robot installation normally takes 4–6 weeks. In our example calculation it takes 30 days, with production down 80 % of the time. A fenceless, factory-built OpiFlex cell takes 4 days, with production down about 10 % of the time. ![Rapid robot integration and installation: cost of downtime at installation, example calculation](https://blog.opiflex.se/hs-fs/hubfs/Images/Blog%20Images/p09-installation-downtime-cost.png?width=1920&height=1080&name=p09-installation-downtime-cost.png) | Downtime cost during installation (example) | Traditional | OpiFlex | | --- | --- | --- | | 1 shift | €28,800 | €480 | | 3 shifts | €86,400 | €1,440 | | 5 shifts | €144,000 | €2,400 | The figure grows with every shift you run. During an OpiFlex installation, production can often continue at about 50 % by day and fully in the evenings and at night. ## Every new product In the example, adding a product the traditional way means 60 hours of programming and online testing, about €10,000, with the machine down 80 % of that time. With the Dynamic Program Generator, the operator creates the new program in 1–3 minutes, offline, while the machine keeps producing. | New products per year, one shift (example) | Traditional | Dynamic Program Generator | | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | €17,200 | €4.50 | | 10 | €172,000 | €45 | | 50 | €860,000 | €225 | | 100 | €1,720,000 | €450 | This is the cost that decides whether small series are worth automating at all. When a new program takes minutes, a product you run a few times a year can go on the robot too. Here an operator with no robot experience creates a program for a completely new product in 1 minute 17 seconds: ## Every week of waiting The cost starts before installation. In the traditional comparison, order to delivery is 20–50 weeks and installation normally 4–6 weeks. For an OpiFlex cell, order to delivery is normally 4–16 weeks and installation 2–4 days. In our example, each week of delivery delay costs about €5,278 in lost contribution margin, and each week of installation stop about €8,185. ![Time matters: every week you wait costs lost contribution margin, example calculation](https://blog.opiflex.se/hs-fs/hubfs/Images/Blog%20Images/p09-time-matters.png?width=1920&height=1080&name=p09-time-matters.png) ## Your own figures Three numbers are enough to start: what an hour of downtime costs you, how many new products you add a year, and how many weeks the project would take. We then do the calculation together on your own figures, in our production economics model, which is validated by Chalmers University of Technology. Tell us a little about your production and we will take it from there. [Contact us](https://www.opiflex.se/en/contact/). Johan Frisk [Read more from Johan Frisk](https://blog.opiflex.se/opiflex-blog/author/johan-frisk) ## Related articles - ### [![OpiFlex Dynamic Fenceless Safety for large industrial robots at high speed](https://blog.opiflex.se/hs-fs/hubfs/Images/Blog%20Images/p04-fenceless-safety.png?length=500&name=p04-fenceless-safety.png) flexible robotics mobile robots fenceless safety OEM & Tier 1 Fenceless safety for large robots at full speed | OpiFlex How a large industrial robot can run at full speed without a fence: the principle, the standards it meets, and what it means for floor space and manual access. 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The hidden costs in a robot investment [![OpiFlex-logo-rev-G-white-3](https://blog.opiflex.se/hs-fs/hubfs/OpiFlex-logo-rev-G-white-3.png?width=250&height=75&name=OpiFlex-logo-rev-G-white-3.png "OpiFlex-logo-rev-G-white-3")](https://blog.opiflex.se/opiflex-blog/the-hidden-costs-in-a-robot-investment#link) ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Johan Frisk", "url" : "https://blog.opiflex.se/opiflex-blog/author/johan-frisk" }, "dateModified" : "2026-10-14T16:53:00.448Z", "datePublished" : "2026-10-14T16:16:59.000Z", "headline" : "Hidden costs in a robot investment: ROI example | OpiFlex", "image" : [ "https://blog.opiflex.se/hubfs/Images/Blog%20Images/p09-installation-downtime-cost.png" ], "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://blog.opiflex.se/opiflex-blog/the-hidden-costs-in-a-robot-investment", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://blog.opiflex.se/hubfs/OpiFlex%20logo%20PNG%202017-03%20(Small).png" }, "name" : "OpiFlex" } } ```