Identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency
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 | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events (4.A.1.b.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 10 occupations that perform it.
- Identify opportunities to improve plant electrical equipment, controls, or process control methodologies.
- Interview key staff or tour facilities to identify efficiency-improvement, cost-reduction, or service-delivery opportunities.
- Identify opportunities for inventory reductions.
- Seek new ways to improve efficiency and increase profits.
- Evaluate the operation and maintenance of water or wastewater systems to identify ways to improve their efficiency.
- Perform a variety of tasks during funerals to assist funeral directors and to ensure that services run smoothly and as planned.
- Consolidate loads with a common destination to reduce costs to individual shippers.
- Identify means to reduce costs, minimize risks, or increase efficiency of solar installation projects.
- Identify and prioritize energy-saving measures.
- Plan, design, and improve components of traffic control systems to accommodate current or projected traffic and to increase usability and efficiency.
- Identify or develop business rules or standard operating procedures to streamline operating processes.
- Identify opportunities to improve the operation, maintenance, or energy efficiency of building or process systems.
- Identify cost-reduction or process-improvement logistic opportunities.
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
10 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 “Identify business or organizational opportunities”. 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.