Diagnose equipment malfunctions
Little of this can be handed to software today.
Software can assemble the case and recommend an answer, and that is genuinely useful. The decision stays with a person because someone has to be accountable for it. Treating the recommendation as the decision is how automation projects fail.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Judgment, authorisation and strategy |
| Jobs that do it | 9 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Generalist agents, Models and routing |
| O*NET activity | Making Decisions and Solving Problems (4.A.2.b.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 9 occupations that perform it.
- Compile and analyze test information to determine process or equipment operating efficiency or to diagnose malfunctions.
- Troubleshoot problems with audio-visual equipment.
- Operate equipment to demonstrate proper use or to analyze malfunctions.
- Troubleshoot, maintain, and make minor repairs to equipment.
- Diagnose machine tool malfunctions to determine need for adjustments or repairs.
- Respond to system or unit abnormalities, diagnosing the cause, and recommending or taking corrective action.
- Identify or address malfunctions of hydroelectric plant operational equipment, such as generators, transformers, or turbines.
- Determine causes of abnormal pressure variances, and make corrective recommendations, such as installation of pipes to relieve overloading.
- Inspect equipment for leaks, diagnose malfunctions, and request repairs.
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 judgment, authorisation and strategy, and what it costs.
There is nothing here worth buying beyond a good assistant. Software assembles the case and recommends an answer, which any $20 assistant already does; the decision is yours, and no product on this page changes that.
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
9 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Chemists
- Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Commercial and Industrial Equipment
- Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Gas Plant Operators
- Hydroelectric Plant Technicians
- Librarians and Media Collections Specialists
- Machinists
- Nuclear Power Reactor Operators
- Semiconductor Processing Technicians
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Diagnose system or equipment problems”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Troubleshoot equipment or systems operation problems | 14 |
| Determine causes of operational problems or failures | 5 |
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.