Assemble products or production equipment
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 | 11 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 11 occupations that perform it.
- Assemble large vessels in an on-site fabrication shop prior to installation to ensure proper fit.
- Build sleds from logs and timbers for use in hauling camp buildings and machinery through wooded areas.
- Fasten seams or joints together with welds, bolts, cement, rivets, solder, caulks, metal drive clips, or bonds to assemble components into products or to repair sheet metal items.
- Install gas burners to convert furnaces from wood, coal, or oil.
- Assemble, install, repair, and maintain elevators, escalators, moving sidewalks, and dumbwaiters, using hand and power tools, and testing devices such as test lamps, ammeters, and voltmeters.
- Bolt together pump and engine parts, and connect tanks and flow lines.
- Assemble and position machines, augers, casing pipes, and other equipment, using hand and power tools.
- Assemble and position equipment, explosives, and blasting caps in holes at specified depths, or load perforating guns or torpedoes with explosives.
- Bolt together pump and engine parts.
- Assemble and install new pipe organs and pianos in buildings.
- Rotate through all the tasks required in a particular production process.
- Attach guide shoes and rollers to minimize the lateral motion of cars as they travel through shafts.
- Insert waterproof sealers, bullets, and/or powder charges into guns, and screw gun ports back into place.
- Connect car frames to counterweights, using steel cables.
- Assemble elevator cars, installing each car's platform, walls, and doors.
- Assemble electrically powered stairs, steel frameworks, and tracks, and install associated motors and electrical wiring.
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
11 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Boilermakers
- Carpenters
- Earth Drillers, Except Oil and Gas
- Elevator and Escalator Installers and Repairers
- Explosives Workers, Ordnance Handling Experts, and Blasters
- Helpers--Pipelayers, Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Steamfitters
- Musical Instrument Repairers and Tuners
- Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas
- Roustabouts, Oil and Gas
- Sheet Metal Workers
- Team Assemblers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Assemble equipment or components”. 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.