Create models of engineering designs or methods
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Producing the draft is the single thing current models are best at, and it needs no integration at all: a prompt and a couple of reference documents are enough. A person still edits it and takes responsibility for what goes out.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Drafting and content production |
| Jobs that do it | 14 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Generalist agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Drafting, Laying Out, and Specifying Technical Devices, Parts, and Equipment (4.A.3.b.2) |
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.
- Formulate mathematical models or other methods of computer analysis to develop, evaluate, or modify design, according to customer engineering requirements.
- Develop statistical models or simulations, using statistical or modeling software.
- Model transportation scenarios to evaluate the impacts of activities such as new development or to identify possible solutions to transportation problems.
- Perform hydrological analyses, using three-dimensional simulation software, to model the movement of water or forecast the dispersion of chemical pollutants in the water supply.
- Perform statistical analyses, such as social network pattern analysis, network modeling, discrete event simulation, agent-based modeling, statistical natural language processing, computational sociology, mathematical optimization, or systems dynamics.
- Replicate the characteristics of materials and their components, using computers.
- Develop or test models of alternate designs or processing methods to assess feasibility, sustainability, operating condition effects, potential new applications, or necessity of modification.
- Simulate or model fuel cell, motor, or other system information, using simulation software programs.
- Build models for algorithm or control feature verification testing.
- Simulate reservoir performance for different recovery techniques, using computer models.
- Perform energy modeling, measurement, verification, commissioning, or retro-commissioning.
- Investigate characteristics such as cost, performance, or process capability of potential microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) device designs, using simulation or modeling software.
- Perform computer simulation of solar photovoltaic (PV) generation system performance or energy production to optimize efficiency.
- Create models to demonstrate or predict the process by which pollutants move through or impact an environment.
- Develop models or computer simulations of human biobehavioral systems to obtain data for measuring or controlling life processes.
- Perform mathematical modeling of underground or surface water resources, such as floodplains, ocean coastlines, streams, rivers, or wetlands.
- Apply modeling or quantitative analysis to forecast events, such as human decisions or behaviors, the structure or processes of organizations, or the attitudes or actions of human groups.
- Analyze, interpret, or create graphical representations of energy data, using engineering software.
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 drafting and content production, and what it costs.
Drafting needs no tools, no integration and no platform. One $20 assistant and two reference documents beat any agent builder here, and every extra thing in this stack is cost with nothing behind 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.
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.
Generalist agents
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.
- Aerospace Engineers
- Automotive Engineers
- Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers
- Energy Engineers, Except Wind and Solar
- Environmental Engineering Technologists and Technicians
- Fuel Cell Engineers
- Human Factors Engineers and Ergonomists
- Materials Engineers
- Mechanical Engineers
- Microsystems Engineers
- Petroleum Engineers
- Solar Energy Systems Engineers
- Transportation Engineers
- Water/Wastewater Engineers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Develop models of systems, processes, or products”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Develop models of information or communications systems | 11 |
| Create physical models or prototypes | 8 |
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.