Adjust equipment controls to regulate flow of production materials or products
Little of this can be handed to software today.
This happens in the physical world, so software agents do not touch it. Automation here means robotics and machinery, which is a different market from the one mapped on this site, on a much slower clock.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 16 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Handling and Moving Objects (4.A.3.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 16 occupations that perform it.
- Open valves, gates, or chutes or use shovels to load or remove products from ovens or other equipment.
- Observe gauges, dials, and product characteristics, and adjust controls to maintain appropriate temperature, pressure, and flow of ingredients.
- Pour and regulate the flow of molten metal into molds and forms to produce ingots or other castings, using ladles or hand-controlled mechanisms.
- Start machines and turn handwheels or valves to engage feeding, cooling, and lubricating mechanisms.
- Mix and test solutions, and turn valves to fill tanks with solutions.
- Adjust ink fountain flow rates.
- Set up or operate glue machines by filling glue reservoirs, turning switches to activate heating elements, or adjusting glue flow or conveyor speed.
- Load materials into extruding and forming machines, using hand tools, and adjust feed mechanisms to set feed rates.
- Turn valves to regulate flow of products or byproducts through agitator tanks, storage drums, or neutralizer tanks.
- Set up or adjust machine controls to regulate conditions such as material flow, temperature, or pressure.
- Open valves to drain slurry from mixers into storage tanks.
- Adjust machine components to regulate speeds, pressures, and temperatures, and amounts, dimensions, and flow of materials or ingredients.
- Turn dials, handwheels, valves, or switches to regulate conveyor speeds, machine temperature, air pressure and circulation, and the flow or spray of coatings or paints.
- Adjust machine feed and speed, change cutting tools, or adjust machine controls when automatic programming is faulty or if machines malfunction.
- Adjust machine components according to specifications such as widths, lengths, and thickness of materials and amounts of glue, cement, or adhesive required.
- Read dials and gauges on panel control boards to ascertain temperatures, alkalinities, and densities of mixtures, and turn valves to obtain specified mixtures.
- Turn valves or start pumps to add ingredients or drain products from equipment and to transfer products for storage, cooling, or further processing.
- Pull levers to lift ladle stoppers and to allow molten steel to flow into ingot molds to specified heights.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Nothing on this site applies. Automation here is robotics and machinery, a different market on a much slower clock, and no software subscription moves it.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
16 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Adhesive Bonding Machine Operators and Tenders
- Chemical Plant and System Operators
- Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Computer Numerically Controlled Tool Operators
- Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders
- Extruding and Forming Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Synthetic and Glass Fibers
- Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders
- Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders
- Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Plating Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Pourers and Casters, Metal
- Print Binding and Finishing Workers
- Printing Press Operators
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Adjust equipment to ensure adequate performance”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.