That’s a good question. Hourly labor costs will eventually make automation cost effective.
He’s making more carts per hour than say a xylem tech (1100 carts per hour) which is $100k plus, using @Greenleafpro numbers would take 333 hours of filling time (aka someone has to be in the building) to become cost effective. A ten man team with manual cart farmers produces at least 3000 carts per hour, which is almost triple the xylem. Multiplying that 333 hours 2.7x is 908.2 hours to become cost effective for ONE vape cartridge style. If you have someone in the building 24/7 you could become cost effective in 37.8 production days. That’s approximately 7.6 weeks (5 days 24 hour days)
Since your initial investment for that 10 man team is about 1600 in cart farmers, 5000 in cappers and about 1000 in misc equipment (that you’d need for the autofiller) the guys with the farmer can close down shop and pivot to something else if the guys with the xylem take over. And they wouldn’t have had to give a portion of their company to someone else so they can go buck wild buying whatever else they need to pivot.
Of course I am juicing the numbers because a 10 man team can easily sustain 4000 carts an hour if fillers are constantly rotated every batch. If that 10 man team is using dual farmers, (+$10,000) that number increases to 7500-8000 per hour. And every year I’m gonna find new and more elaborate ways to make that number higher