Inspect metal, plastic, or composite 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 | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Materials (4.A.1.b.2) |
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.
- Lay out and examine metal stock or workpieces to be processed to ensure that specifications are met.
- Measure and examine extruded products to locate defects and to check for conformance to specifications, adjusting controls as necessary to alter products.
- Examine, inspect, and measure raw materials and finished products to verify conformance to specifications.
- Examine completed workpieces for defects, such as chipped edges or marred surfaces and sort defective pieces according to types of flaws.
- Inspect and test products to verify conformance to specifications, using precision measuring instruments or circuit testers.
- Measure and visually inspect products for surface and dimension defects to ensure conformance to specifications, using precision measuring instruments.
- Conduct test runs with completed tools or dies to ensure that parts meet specifications, making adjustments as necessary.
- Test parts for hardness, using hardness testing equipment, or by examining and feeling samples.
- Inspect machined parts to verify conformance to specifications.
- Examine, measure, and weigh materials or products to verify conformance to standards, using measuring devices such as templates, micrometers, or scales.
- Test physical properties of products with testing devices such as acid-bath testers, burst testers, and impact testers.
- Inspect finished dies for smoothness, contour conformity, and defects.
- Examine parts to ensure metal shades and colors conform to specifications, using knowledge of metal heat-treating.
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.
- Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Heat Treating Equipment Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Layout Workers, Metal and Plastic
- Model Makers, Metal and Plastic
- Molding, Coremaking, and Casting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Rolling Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Structural Metal Fabricators and Fitters
- Tool and Die Makers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Inspect completed work or finished products”. 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.