To calculate the return on AI safety cameras, estimate the costs the system is expected to avoid over the contract term, subtract the total cost of ownership, and divide the result by that total cost. Avoided costs include injury claims and lost time, equipment, rack and product damage, investigation time and downtime after incidents, and labour saved on manual video review. Total cost covers cameras, installation, software subscriptions, connectivity, maintenance and staff time spent reviewing alerts. Base the avoided-cost estimate on your own incident and near-miss history, or on exposure measured in a pilot, rather than on a supplier's figures.
The full guide is Forklift safety system ROI, which builds the business case step by step. Two things make camera ROI hard to state precisely. Serious injuries are rare at a single site, so one avoided event can dominate the result, and the honest answer is a range rather than a single figure. Some benefits, such as better incident evidence and coaching material, are real but hard to price. Build a conservative case that counts only damage and minor-incident costs, and a second case that adds one avoided serious injury priced from your own claims data or published national averages. The cost guide helps with the cost side.