Analyze operational data to evaluate operations, processes or products
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 14 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Analyzing Data or Information (4.A.2.a.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 14 occupations that perform it.
- Conduct user research to determine design requirements and analyze user feedback to improve design quality.
- Analyze control or survey data to ensure adherence to project specifications or land survey standards.
- Analyze new medical procedures to forecast likely outcomes.
- Perform hydraulic analyses of water supply systems or water distribution networks to model flow characteristics, test for pressure losses, or to identify opportunities to mitigate risks and improve operational efficiency.
- Analyze radio frequency identification device (RFID)-related supply chain data.
- Design or evaluate human work systems, using human factors engineering and ergonomic principles to optimize usability, cost, quality, safety, or performance.
- Investigate or resolve operational problems, such as material use variances or bottlenecks.
- Analyze system performance or operational requirements.
- Correlate, interpret, and modify data obtained from topographical surveys, well logs, and geophysical prospecting reports.
- Perform statistical analysis and correction of air or water pollution data submitted by industry or other agencies.
- Analyze performance of vehicles or components that have been redesigned to increase fuel efficiency, such as camless or dual-clutch engines or alternative types of air-conditioning systems.
- Perform diagnostic analyses of processing steps, using analytical or metrological tools, such as microscopy, profilometry, or ellipsometry devices.
- Monitor and evaluate survey progress and performance, using sample disposition reports and response rate calculations.
- Analyze incident data to identify trends in injuries, illnesses, accidents, or other hazards.
- Analyze the efficiency of water delivery structures, such as dams, tainter gates, canals, pipes, penstocks, or cofferdams.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
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.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
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
14 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Architectural and Civil Drafters
- Automotive Engineering Technicians
- Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers
- Environmental Engineering Technologists and Technicians
- Geodetic Surveyors
- Human Factors Engineers and Ergonomists
- Manufacturing Engineers
- Occupational Health and Safety Specialists
- Photonics Engineers
- Photonics Technicians
- Radio Frequency Identification Device Specialists
- Survey Researchers
- Water/Wastewater Engineers
- Web and Digital Interface Designers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Analyze data to improve operations”. 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.