Which jobs involve feed materials or products into or through equipment?

21 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity, including Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders, Grinding, Lapping, Polishing, and Buffing Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic.

What kind of work is this?

It is physical, manual and inspection work. O*NET files it under the work activity "Handling and Moving Objects" (element 4.A.3.a.2).

Feed materials or products into or through equipment

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.

Key facts about this work activity
How automatable	Barely automatable
Kind of work	Physical, manual and inspection work
Jobs that do it	21 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 21 occupations that perform it.

Start conveyors to move roasted grain to cooling pans and agitate grain with rakes as blowers force air through perforated bottoms of pans.
Thread or feed sheets or rods through rolling mechanisms, or start and control mechanisms that automatically feed steel into rollers.
Thread and hand-feed materials through machine cutters or abraders.
Move toolholders manually or by turning handwheels, or engage automatic feeding mechanisms to feed tools to and along workpieces.
Move cutters or material manually or by turning handwheels, or engage automatic feeding mechanisms to mill workpieces to specifications.
Set pyrometer controls of heat-treating furnaces and feed or place parts, tools, or assemblies into furnaces to harden.
Load or feed workpieces into welding machines to join or bond components.
Position and feed materials into processing machines, by hand or by using automated equipment.
Feed paper through press cylinders and adjust feed and tension controls.
Place spools of thread, cord, or other materials on spindles, insert bobbins, and thread ends through machine guides and components.
Draw thread through machine guide slots, needles, and presser feet in preparation for stitching, or load rolls of wire through machine axles.
Thread ends of cloth or twine through specified sections of equipment prior to processing.
Thread yarn, thread, or fabric through guides, needles, and rollers of machines.
Thread yarn, thread, and fabric through guides, needles, and rollers of machines for weaving, knitting, or other processing.
Feed stock through feed mechanisms or conveyors into planing, shaping, boring, mortising, or sanding machines to produce desired components.
Feed stock into cutting machines, onto conveyors, or under cutting blades, by threading, guiding, pushing, or turning handwheels.
Feed products into machines by hand or conveyor.
Supply materials to spindles, conveyors, hoppers, or other feeding devices and unload packaged product.

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.

Our pickBuy nothing

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.

Research an account firstGenerate a one-page account brief before every call so you spend the meeting on what matters, not what Google already knows.Sales · 8 steps Answer inbound leads in a minuteAcknowledge every form submission in under sixty seconds and ask one qualifying question while you sleep.Sales · 9 steps

Who does this work

21 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 “Position workpieces or materials on equipment”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.

Related work activities
Activity	Jobs
Mount attachments or tools onto production equipment	37
Mount materials or workpieces onto production equipment	36
Adjust fabrics or other materials during garment production	9
Maneuver workpieces in equipment during production	6
Position raw materials on processing or production equipment	6

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.