There's a cancelling effect on some of these items, so that the total value in the outcome isn't clear. It seems to hinge on the specifics of how point 4 would

There's a cancelling effect on some of these items, so that the total value in the outcome isn't clear. It seems to hinge on the specifics of how point 4 would play out, which is largely a moral question. Points 1 and 2 are negative in the eyes of management, and yet point 4 is so overwhelmingly favorable for management (or at least for the company...) that it would eclipse any negative implications of points 1 and 2. Point 3 can be circumvented, or at least sufficiently mitigated. I imagine this is how well done software automation typically plays out (though I am only imagining here, really): a fallback is set up for customers who don't receive orders (e.g. a number they can call); initial error rate is unknown, but a mysterious timeout occurs after 100 customers; as soon as that happens the first time, the problem is dug into and solved; next error only occurs after 500 - 1000 customers—when it happens, the problem is dug into and solved; this process repeats, rapidly shrinking the error rate into something vanishingly small while only a handful of customers are affected (and not critically so). Assuming no major flaws in the preceding, everything hinges on the consequences of point 4. If the moral implications are acceptable (e.g. company has other positions for these people), the main upshot of this is just that the company is now spending much less money, and the person responsible for the automation has hopefully been amply rewarded. If the moral implications aren't acceptable (seems more likely...), then the whole thing is kinda stalemated—assuming the decision maker cares about that sort of thing ;)