Clean food preparation areas, facilities, or 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 | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Performing General Physical Activities (4.A.3.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 10 occupations that perform it.
- Supervise and participate in kitchen and dining area cleaning activities.
- Maintain sanitation, health, and safety standards in work areas.
- Clean and inspect galley equipment, kitchen appliances, and work areas to ensure cleanliness and functional operation.
- Inspect and clean food preparation areas, such as equipment, work surfaces, and serving areas, to ensure safe and sanitary food-handling practices.
- Perform general cleaning activities in kitchen and dining areas.
- Clean and sanitize work areas, equipment, utensils, dishes, or silverware.
- Scrub and polish counters, steam tables, and other equipment, and clean glasses, dishes, and fountain equipment.
- Perform cleaning duties, such as sweeping and mopping floors, vacuuming carpet, tidying up server station, taking out trash, or checking and cleaning bathroom.
- Clean and polish counters, shelves, walls, furniture, or equipment in food service areas or other areas of restaurants and mop or vacuum floors.
- Maintain kitchen work areas, equipment, or utensils in clean and orderly condition.
- Clean food preparation areas, cooking surfaces, and utensils.
- Clean food preparation equipment, work areas, and counters or tables.
- Vacuum dining area and sweep and mop kitchen floor.
- Perform cleaning duties, such as sweeping, mopping, and washing dishes, to keep equipment and facilities sanitary.
- Sweep or scrub floors.
- Clean and organize eating, service, and kitchen areas.
- Clean garbage cans with water or steam.
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
10 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Clean tools, equipment, facilities, or work areas”. 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.