Evaluate quality of materials or products
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 | 23 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| 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 23 occupations that perform it.
- Set and monitor product standards, examining samples of raw products or directing testing during processing, to ensure finished products are of prescribed quality.
- Collect and analyze production samples to evaluate quality.
- Draw samples of biofuels products or secondary by-products for quality control testing.
- Evaluate and select information or other technology solutions to improve tracking and reporting of materials or products distribution, storage, or inventory.
- Test cooked food by tasting and smelling it to ensure palatability and flavor conformity.
- Conduct, or oversee the conduct of, chemical, physical, and biological water quality monitoring or sampling to ensure compliance with water quality standards.
- Check raw ingredients for maturity or stability for processing, and finished products for safety, quality, and nutritional value.
- Taste or smell foods or beverages to ensure that flavors meet specifications or to select samples with specific characteristics.
- Monitor product quality to ensure compliance with standards and specifications.
- Perform visual inspections of finished products.
- Evaluate feasibility of design ideas, based on factors such as appearance, safety, function, serviceability, budget, production costs/methods, and market characteristics.
- Evaluate new products for usefulness and suitability.
- Examine costume fit on cast members and sketch or write notes for alterations.
- Check adhesives to ensure that they will work and will remain durable.
- Perform quality checks on products and parts.
- Verify that paper and ink meet the specifications for a given job.
- Check the texture, color, and strength of leather to ensure that it is adequate for a particular purpose.
- Assess quality of biomass feedstock.
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
23 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Biofuels Processing Technicians
- Biofuels Production Managers
- Biomass Plant Technicians
- Chemical Technicians
- Commercial and Industrial Designers
- Costume Attendants
- Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers
- Food Science Technicians
- Food Scientists and Technologists
- Food Service Managers
- Gem and Diamond Workers
- Industrial Production Managers
- Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers
- Jewelers and Precious Stone and Metal Workers
- Printing Press Operators
- Quality Control Analysts
- Quality Control Systems Managers
- Shoe and Leather Workers and Repairers
- Supply Chain Managers
- Tapers
- Team Assemblers
- Water Resource Specialists
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Evaluate production inputs or outputs”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Evaluate quality of plants or crops | 5 |
| Evaluate log quality | 3 |
| Evaluate quality of food ingredients or prepared foods | 3 |
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.