Worked commercial product decision: segment, price logic and channel for a fictional AMR fleet

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

A fictional supplier of autonomous mobile robots is preparing its first fleet contract. The fleet, the contract revenue and every cost figure are those of the fictional AMR lifecycle economics stress test, read from it unchanged. Five further inputs are invented here and listed separately.

The stress test reports one lifecycle cost and does not say who pays which line. Each option below states who carries what. That assignment is an assumption of this example.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

Source file: AMR lifecycle economics: a reproducible fictional stress test.

Source payload SHA-256: 2a612c0a5b74741418b8a6c242970f483b0aba1cccd41d83a3875eab3315d959

The stress test displays annual fleet hours to one decimal place but calculates annual productive value before rounding those hours. The customer-value checks below therefore reuse its annual values of 3,889,787.59 EUR in the baseline and 3,478,523.59 EUR under the worst declared stress. Recalculating from the displayed hours can differ slightly.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

What does the price have to cover, and who carries the risk of lost productive hours?

At the stress test's fee of 18,000 EUR per unit and year, revenue over the 4 contract years is 1,728,000 EUR against a lifecycle cost of 3,088,160 EUR: 14,168.33 EUR short per unit and year. The lifecycle cost is 32,168.33 EUR per unit and year in the baseline and 36,704.33 EUR under the worst declared stress, so an all-in price has to sit above the second figure.

• Keep the stress test's fee and carry every cost line. Rejected. The fee does not cover lifecycle cost even with every failure switch off.
• Customer pays the whole upfront investment at cost (equipment, spares, integration and commissioning); the fee covers running cost only. Rejected. It only just covers running cost in the baseline and loses money under the worst declared stress.
• All-in fixed price per unit and year; the supplier carries every cost line. Chosen. It covers lifecycle cost in the baseline and under the worst declared stress.
• Price per productive hour; the supplier carries every cost line. Rejected for now. It earns about the same as the fixed price in the baseline, but every lost productive hour is lost revenue, and the result turns negative under the worst declared stress.

Decision. An all-in fixed price of 40,000 EUR per unit and year (invented). It leaves 751,840 EUR over the contract in the baseline (19.58% of revenue) and 316,384 EUR under the worst declared stress (8.24%). A price per productive hour is not offered yet: at 8.4 EUR an hour it earns about the same in the baseline and loses 86,016.8 EUR under that stress, because the supplier would carry downtime it has not yet measured.

These comparisons reject the specified offers, not the pricing mechanisms themselves; a different usage price or upfront-payment structure requires a fresh comparison.

Evidence that would change it:

• Availability measured at the first site over a full year. If it holds near the baseline, a price per productive hour becomes defensible and may suit customers better.
• Update the lifecycle cost estimate as evidence arrives. A cost above the modelled stress level of 36,704.33 EUR per unit and year triggers a fresh pricing review; it does not by itself exhaust the 40,000 EUR price.
• A customer who prefers to pay the upfront investment itself and own the equipment. The fee would then have to be rebuilt from running cost, not copied from this example.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

For which sites is the customer's assumed value high enough against that price?

In this fictional screen, assumed customer value per unit and year must be at least 2 times the price (invented rule). Halving that assumed value would still cover the stated price alone. This does not establish net customer benefit: validate incremental value against the customer's existing process or best alternative, deduct costs the customer retains, and test willingness to pay before selecting a launch customer.

• Distribution sites that run each unit at the stress test's duty. Chosen. The assumed value stays above twice the price in the baseline and under the worst declared stress.
• Single-shift sites, assumed to reach 35% of those productive hours. Rejected for now. The assumed value is below twice the price before any stress is applied.

Decision. Serve distribution sites that run each unit at about 4,766.9 productive hours a year. The assumed value is 162,074.48 EUR per unit and year, 4.05 times the price, and 3.62 times under the worst declared stress. Single-shift sites are not sold to now: at 35% of those hours the assumed value is 56,726.07 EUR, 1.42 times the price.

Evidence that would change it:

• A single-shift site that measures at least 2,353 productive hours per unit and year at the assumed 34 EUR an hour.
• A measured value per productive hour at a single-shift site that is higher than the assumption, for example because the units replace a scarce night or weekend task.
• A lower-cost configuration that allows a lower price. That is a different product decision with its own evidence.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

Who commissions and services the first fleet?

• Direct: the supplier commissions and services the fleet itself. Chosen for the first contract as a way to learn the service burden at first hand, provided the supplier can demonstrate commissioning and support capacity and fund the commitment. A positive modelled margin under the declared service overload does not show that capacity.
• Integrator partner: takes 30% of revenue and carries integration, commissioning and service labour. Rejected at the specified share with this allocation of service-overload cost, under which the partner's margin would be negative. This does not reject the partner channel: a different share, capped exposure or a shared overrun arrangement requires its own cost and capacity review.

Decision. Prefer direct sales and service for a bounded first contract, subject to confirmed delivery capacity and funding. Through a partner taking 30% of revenue and carrying 1,037,760 EUR of integration, commissioning and service labour, the supplier would keep 637,600 EUR and the partner 114,240 EUR. The declared service overload adds 272,160 EUR of running cost over the contract. Carried directly, the supplier's margin falls to 479,680 EUR and stays positive; carried by the partner, the partner would lose 157,920 EUR.

Evidence that would change it:

• Service hours measured at the first site at or below the assumed 72 hours per unit and year. A partner can then price the service line on evidence.
• Demand at sites the supplier cannot commission or service itself. A partner then becomes the only way to serve them, and the share has to be renegotiated from measured cost.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

Fictional commercial hypothesis for validation: target distribution sites at the stress test's duty, test an all-in fixed price of 40,000 EUR per unit and year, and prefer direct delivery for the first contract. This record does not establish willingness to pay, complete supplier profitability, funding or delivery capacity.

• Before any binding offer, update the full lifecycle cost estimate, payment schedule and funding requirement, including sales costs, overhead, warranty reserves and financing. Do not commit unless these meet the supplier's agreed margin and funding requirements. At 40,000 EUR of modelled cost per unit and year, modelled contribution is already zero before the omitted costs.
• Do not sell to a site whose measured value per unit and year is below 80,000 EUR. At the stress test's duty that is 16.78 EUR per productive hour, against the assumed 34 EUR.
• Reopen the channel decision when one full year of service hours has been measured at the first site.

The fictional supplier's accountable product leader decides, with the commercial lead and the finance partner. The customer's own acceptance, safety and contract decisions are not part of this record.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

Every derived figure above, with its formula. Results are rounded to two decimals.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

• Nothing here is a market price, a competitor price, a measured cost or a forecast. The supplier, the segments, the price, the share and the rule are invented.
• The stress test's lifecycle net value is not supplier profit. This example goes one step further and assigns its cost lines to a party; a real supplier's cost base is different.
• Cost per unit and year is held constant across the two segments. A single-shift site would in practice change energy, service and replacement cost, which is not modelled here.
• The stress test does not discount cash flows or model tax, financing or the timing of payments. Neither does this example, so an upfront payment by the customer and a fee paid over the contract are compared at face value.
• The service-overload rise is the whole rise in running cost in that run. Assigning all of it to a partner is a deliberately hard case, not a description of a real contract.
• Margins are shown before sales cost, overhead and warranty reserves, none of which the stress test contains.
• This is not legal, tax or contract advice, and it says nothing about what a customer would accept.

Fictional worked example: invented inputs and calculated illustrations; no customer evidence.

The Markdown file carries the text and figures of the worked pack. The JSON file holds the same inputs, calculated figures and checks as structured data.

• Markdown file
• JSON file

Payload SHA-256: f349ec50d8062f8487b0f5089ffce36731bf1973cd13d15277c894de7f207508