Evaluate characteristics of equipment or systems
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 15 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Judging the Qualities of Objects, Services, or People (4.A.2.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 15 occupations that perform it.
- Assess the physical security of servers, systems, or network devices to identify vulnerability to temperature, vandalism, or natural disasters.
- Evaluate the safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of biomedical equipment.
- Evaluate chemical equipment and processes to identify ways to optimize performance or to ensure compliance with safety and environmental regulations.
- Evaluate transportation systems or traffic control devices or lighting systems to determine need for modification or expansion.
- Evaluate the operation and maintenance of water or wastewater systems to identify ways to improve their efficiency.
- Evaluate project work to ensure effectiveness, technical adequacy, or compatibility in the resolution of complex electronics engineering problems.
- Evaluate performance of craft during dock and sea trials to determine design changes and conformance with national and international standards.
- Research, design, evaluate, install, operate, or maintain mechanical products, equipment, systems or processes to meet requirements.
- Design or analyze automobile systems in areas such as aerodynamics, alternate fuels, ergonomics, hybrid power, brakes, transmissions, steering, calibration, safety, or diagnostics.
- Evaluate robotic systems or prototypes.
- Construct and evaluate electrical components for consumer electronics applications such as fuel cells for consumer electronic devices, power saving devices for computers or televisions, or energy efficient power chargers.
- Determine whether selected electromechanical components comply with environmental standards and regulations.
- Evaluate the efficiency and reliability of industrial robotic systems, reprogramming or calibrating to achieve maximum quantity and quality.
- Evaluate remote sensing project requirements to determine the types of equipment or computer software necessary to meet project requirements, such as specific image types or output resolutions.
- Trace electrical circuitry to ensure compliance of electrical systems with applicable codes or laws.
- Evaluate traffic control devices or lighting systems to determine need for modification or expansion.
- Evaluate operation of marine equipment during acceptance testing and shakedown cruises.
- Conduct analyses of ships, such as stability, structural, weight, and vibration analyses.
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 analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
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.
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
15 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Automotive Engineers
- Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers
- Chemical Engineers
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering Technologists and Technicians
- Electro-Mechanical and Mechatronics Technologists and Technicians
- Electronics Engineers, Except Computer
- Marine Engineers and Naval Architects
- Mechanical Engineers
- Penetration Testers
- Power Plant Operators
- Remote Sensing Technicians
- Robotics Engineers
- Robotics Technicians
- Transportation Engineers
- Water/Wastewater Engineers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Evaluate the characteristics, usefulness, or performance of products or technologies”. 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.