Calibrate equipment to specifications
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.
- Match light fixture settings, such as brightness and color, to lighting design plans.
- Perform quality assurance system checks, such as calibrations, on treatment planning computers.
- Align, adjust, or calibrate equipment according to specifications.
- Calibrate and align components, using scales, gauges, and other measuring instruments.
- Calibrate testing instruments and installed or repaired equipment to prescribed specifications.
- Calibrate and test equipment, and locate circuit and component faults, using hand and power tools and measuring and testing instruments such as resistance meters and oscilloscopes.
- Calibrate instrumentation, such as meters, gauges, and regulators, for pressure, temperature, flow, and level.
- Calibrate and verify accuracy of light meters, shutter diaphragm operation, or lens carriers, using timing instruments.
- Test or calibrate components or equipment, following manufacturers' manuals and troubleshooting techniques, using hand tools, power tools, or measuring devices.
- Maintain, calibrate, or repair plant instrumentation, control, and electronic devices in geothermal plants.
- Make minor adjustments to equipment, such as turning setscrews to calibrate instruments to required tolerances.
- Calibrate testing instruments.
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.
- Audiovisual Equipment Installers and Repairers
- Camera and Photographic Equipment Repairers
- Computer, Automated Teller, and Office Machine Repairers
- Control and Valve Installers and Repairers, Except Mechanical Door
- Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Commercial and Industrial Equipment
- Geothermal Technicians
- Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers
- Lighting Technicians
- Medical Dosimetrists
- Medical Equipment Repairers
- Radio, Cellular, and Tower Equipment Installers and Repairers
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.