Maintain laboratory or technical 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 | 13 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Repairing and Maintaining Electronic Equipment (4.A.3.b.5) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 13 occupations that perform it.
- Maintain laboratory instruments to ensure proper working order and troubleshoot malfunctions when needed.
- Install, maintain, and calibrate instruments such as those that monitor water levels, rainfall, and sediments.
- Maintain or repair agricultural facilities, equipment, or tools to ensure operational readiness, safety, and cleanliness.
- Install, calibrate, or maintain sensors, mechanical controls, GPS-based vehicle guidance systems, or computer settings.
- Perform regular maintenance of laboratory equipment by inspecting, calibrating, cleaning, or sterilizing.
- Maintain, clean, or sterilize laboratory instruments or equipment.
- Adjust or repair testing, electrical, or mechanical equipment or devices.
- Modify, devise, or maintain nuclear equipment used in operations.
- Calibrate and maintain chemical instrumentation sensing elements and sampling system equipment, using calibration instruments and hand tools.
- Operate and maintain laboratory equipment and apparatus.
- Identify and troubleshoot equipment problems.
- Maintain or repair lab equipment.
- Maintain and repair laboratory equipment.
- Calibrate, validate, or maintain laboratory equipment.
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
13 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Agricultural Technicians
- Biological Science Teachers, Postsecondary
- Chemical Technicians
- Chemists
- Food Science Technicians
- Forensic Science Technicians
- Geological Technicians, Except Hydrologic Technicians
- Hydrologists
- Nuclear Monitoring Technicians
- Nuclear Technicians
- Physics Teachers, Postsecondary
- Precision Agriculture Technicians
- Quality Control Analysts
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Maintain electronic, computer, or other technical equipment”. 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.