Fabricate medical devices
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 | 11 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Handling and Moving Objects (4.A.3.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 11 occupations that perform it.
- Design, make, or fit prosthodontic appliances, such as space maintainers, bridges, or dentures, or write fabrication instructions or prescriptions for denturists or dental technicians.
- Design and fabricate appliances, such as space maintainers, retainers, and labial and lingual arch wires.
- Make and fit prosthetic appliances.
- Design and create, or requisition, special supplies and equipment, such as splints, braces, and computer-aided adaptive equipment.
- Construct, maintain, or repair medical supportive devices.
- Prepare or construct equipment, such as immobilization, treatment, or protection devices.
- Make impressions for study casts.
- Fabricate beam modifying devices, such as compensators, shields, and wedge filters.
- Verify that finished lenses are ground to specifications.
- Make and modify plaster casts of areas to be fitted with prostheses or orthoses to guide the device construction process.
- Create or modify impressions for earmolds and hearing aid shells.
- Fabricate patient immobilization devices, such as molds or casts, for radiation delivery.
- Fabricate lenses to meet prescription specifications.
- Select materials and components to be used, based on device design.
- Grind lens edges, or apply coatings to lenses.
- Repair, rebuild, and modify prosthetic and orthopedic appliances.
- Assemble eyeglasses by cutting and edging lenses, and fitting the lenses into frames.
- Construct and fabricate appliances, or supervise others constructing the appliances.
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
11 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 “Fabricate medical devices”. 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.