Adjust equipment controls to regulate flow of water, cleaning solutions, or other liquids
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 | 9 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 9 occupations that perform it.
- Start machines and turn handwheels or valves to engage feeding, cooling, and lubricating mechanisms.
- Regulate equipment operations and conditions, such as water levels, based on instrument data or from computers.
- Calibrate liquid flow devices or meters, including fuel, chemical, and water meters.
- Activate valves to maintain required amounts of water in boilers, to adjust supplies of combustion air, and to control the flow of fuel into burners.
- Start pumps and open valves or use automated equipment to regulate the flow of oil in pipelines and into and out of tanks.
- Calibrate liquid flow devices and meters, including fuel, chemical, and water meters.
- Turn valves to pump sterilizing solutions or rinse water through pipes or equipment or to spray vats with atomizers.
- Turn valves to regulate the moisture contents of materials.
- Turn valves to regulate flow of liquids or air, to reverse machines, to start pumps, or to regulate equipment.
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
9 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Biofuels Processing Technicians
- Biomass Plant Technicians
- Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Helpers--Production Workers
- Multiple Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers
- Power Plant Operators
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators
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.