Immerse objects or workpieces in cleaning or coating solutions
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 | 9 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 9 occupations that perform it.
- Apply solvents and cleaning agents to clean surfaces of paintings, and to remove accretions, discolorations, and deteriorated varnish.
- Immerse completed workpieces into water or acid baths to cool and clean components.
- Immerse workpieces in coating solutions or liquid metal or plastic for specified times.
- Place workpieces in electroplating solutions or apply pigments to surfaces of workpieces to highlight ridges and grooves.
- Immerse articles in bleaching baths to strip colors.
- Soak specified textile products for designated times.
- Immerse eyeglass frames in solutions to harden, soften, or dye frames.
- Immerse film, negatives, paper, or prints in developing solutions, fixing solutions, and water to complete photographic development processes.
- Remove wax or tape from etched glassware by using a stylus or knife, or by immersing ware in hot water.
- Immerse objects to be coated or plated into cleaning solutions, or spray objects with conductive solutions to prepare them for plating.
- Suspend sticks or pieces of plating metal from anodes, or positive terminals, and immerse metal in plating solutions.
- Suspend objects, such as parts or molds from cathode rods, or negative terminals, and immerse objects in plating solutions.
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
9 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Etchers and Engravers
- Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators
- Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Workers
- Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians
- Photographic Process Workers and Processing Machine Operators
- Plating Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Textile Bleaching and Dyeing Machine Operators and Tenders
- Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners
- Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Prepare industrial materials for processing or use”. 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.