Load materials into production 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.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 40 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Performing General Physical Activities (4.A.3.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 40 occupations that perform it.
- Select and load materials such as workpieces, objects, and machine parts onto equipment used in coiling processes.
- Combine measured ingredients in bowls of mixing, blending, or cooking machinery.
- Fill processing or cooking containers, such as kettles, rotating cookers, pressure cookers, or vats, with ingredients, by opening valves, by starting pumps or injectors, or by hand.
- Pour, dump, or load prescribed quantities of ingredients or products into cooking equipment, manually or using a hoist.
- Load machine hoppers with mixed materials, using augers, or stuff rolls of plastic dough into machine cylinders.
- Load workpieces, plastic material, or chemical solutions into machines.
- Kindle fires, and shovel fuel and other materials into furnaces or onto conveyors by hand, with hoists, or by directing crane operators.
- Load specified amounts of metal and flux into furnaces or clay crucibles.
- Mix and measure compounds, or weigh premixed compounds, and dump them into machine tubs, cavities, or molds.
- Load or feed workpieces into welding machines to join or bond components.
- Position containers to receive parts, and load or unload materials in containers, using dollies or handtrucks.
- Load presses with paper and make necessary adjustments, according to paper size.
- Set up or operate glue machines by filling glue reservoirs, turning switches to activate heating elements, or adjusting glue flow or conveyor speed.
- 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.
- Mount rolls of cloth on machines, using hoists, or place textile goods in machines or pieces of equipment.
- Unwind lengths of yarn, thread, or twine from spools and wind onto bobbins.
- Load materials into extruding and forming machines, using hand tools, and adjust feed mechanisms to set feed rates.
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
40 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Adhesive Bonding Machine Operators and Tenders
- Bakers
- Biofuels Processing Technicians
- Biomass Plant Technicians
- Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders
- Cleaning, Washing, and Metal Pickling Equipment Operators and Tenders
- Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Coil Winders, Tapers, and Finishers
- Computer Numerically Controlled Tool Operators
- Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders
- Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Extruding and Forming Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Synthetic and Glass Fibers
- Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Food Batchmakers
- Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders
- Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders
- Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand
- Helpers--Production Workers
- Metal-Refining Furnace Operators and Tenders
- Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Molding, Coremaking, and Casting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Paper Goods Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Photographic Process Workers and Processing Machine Operators
- Plating Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Pourers and Casters, Metal
- Print Binding and Finishing Workers
- Printing Press Operators
- Recycling and Reclamation Workers
- Semiconductor Processing Technicians
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Sewing Machine Operators
- Shoe Machine Operators and Tenders
- Stone Cutters and Carvers, Manufacturing
- Textile Bleaching and Dyeing Machine Operators and Tenders
- Textile Winding, Twisting, and Drawing Out Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Tire Builders
- Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Woodworking Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Except Sawing
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Load products, materials, or equipment for transportation or further processing”. 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.