You are investigating the use of an automated fruit-picking machine to reduce the labor costs on your 600-acre Valencia orange grove that yields about 240,000 pounds of fruit (roughly 80,000 oranges) per season. You currently employ a crew of 10 migrant workers to hand-pick the fruit over a three-day period and pay them $8/hour.
The fruit-picking machine costs $25,000 and requires two people to operate it. It is capable of picking oranges right off the tree at the rate of one orange per 10 seconds.
The machine is quite sophisticated and employs a vacuum-gripper combined with a vision system to pluck ripe fruit from a tree. Does it make economic sense to purchase the automated fruit-picking machine?