Label production materials.

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 automatableBarely automatable
Kind of workPhysical, manual and inspection work
Jobs that do it1 occupation
Tool categories that applyNone
O*NET activityIdentifying Objects, Actions, and Events (4.A.1.b.1)

What could do this work.

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.

Who does this work.

1 occupation 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 “Mark materials or objects for identification”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.

Related work activities
ActivityJobs
Mark products, workpieces, or equipment with identifying information28
Mark materials or objects for identification10
Mark agricultural or forestry products for identification7
Attach identification information to products, items or containers7
Apply identification labels or tags4

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.