Measure the level or depth of water or other liquids
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Software can pull the data, run the comparison and write up what it found. The accuracy depends almost entirely on whether it is wired into the real system of record rather than a stale copy, which is the problem the tools and auth layer exists to solve.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Analysis and evaluation work |
| Jobs that do it | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Builders, Tools and auth |
| O*NET activity | Estimating the Quantifiable Characteristics of Products, Events, or Information (4.A.1.b.3) |
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.
- Measure the properties of bodies of water, such as water levels, volume, and flow.
- Inspect vehicles and check gas, oil, and water levels prior to departure.
- Observe water levels and oil, air, and steam pressure gauges to ensure proper operation of equipment.
- Measure depth of water in shallow or unfamiliar waters, using leadlines, and telephone or shout depth information to vessel bridges.
- Measure depths of water, using depth-measuring equipment.
- Take depth soundings in turning basins.
- Check tire pressure and levels of fuel, motor oil, transmission, radiator, battery, or other fluids, adding air or fluids as required.
- Read draft markings to determine depths of vessels in water.
- Tend vessels that store substances such as gases, liquids, slurries, or powdered materials, checking levels of substances by using calibrated rods or by reading mercury gauges and tank charts.
- Lower gauge rods into tanks or read meters to verify contents, temperatures, and volumes of liquid loads.
- Measure vessels' holds and depths of fuel and water in tanks, using sounding lines and tape measures.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for analysis and evaluation work, and what it costs.
Start in the assistant with an export of the real data, because the accuracy problem here is a stale copy rather than a weak model. Make, at $9 a month, is the cheapest way to put the pull on a schedule once the analysis is worth repeating.
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.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
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.
- Automotive and Watercraft Service Attendants
- Bus Drivers, Transit and Intercity
- Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels
- Hydrologic Technicians
- Motorboat Operators
- Pump Operators, Except Wellhead Pumpers
- Rail Yard Engineers, Dinkey Operators, and Hostlers
- Sailors and Marine Oilers
- Tank Car, Truck, and Ship Loaders
- Transportation Inspectors
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Measure physical characteristics of materials, products, or 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.