Monitor availability of equipment or supplies
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
An agent can propose the plan, chase the replies and keep the record current. To actually change anything it needs write access to a calendar or work system, and a person still owns the tradeoffs when two plans collide.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Scheduling, planning and resource control |
| Jobs that do it | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Tools and auth, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Monitoring and Controlling Resources (4.A.4.c.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.
- Supply and monitor robotic machines that dispense medicine into containers and label the containers.
- Inventory stock to determine types or conditions of available costuming.
- Check supplies to ensure adequate availability, and order new supplies when necessary.
- Assemble and check the required supplies and equipment prior to departure.
- Verify amounts and quality of equipment prior to expeditions or tours.
- Check to ensure that food, beverages, blankets, reading material, emergency equipment, and other supplies are aboard and are in adequate supply.
- Inspect locomotives to verify adequate fuel, sand, water, or other supplies before each run or to check for mechanical problems.
- Check to see that trains are equipped with supplies such as fuel, water, and sand.
- Monitor the availability, use, or condition of lifesaving equipment or pollution preventatives to ensure that international regulations are followed.
- Perform general warehouse activities, such as opening containers and crates, filling warehouse orders, assisting in taking inventory, and weighing and checking materials.
- Monitor, maintain, or secure inventories of costumes, wigs, or makeup, providing keys or access to assigned directors, costume designers, or wardrobe mistresses/masters.
- Take inventory of headsets, alcoholic beverages, and money collected.
- Check to ensure that documentation, such as procedure manuals or logbooks, are in the driver's cab and available for staff use.
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 scheduling, planning and resource control, and what it costs.
Scheduling is a connector problem rather than an intelligence one, and $9 a month of Make covers both the calendar and the chasing. An agent platform priced per seat adds nothing you would notice here.
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.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Monitor resources or inventories”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Monitor inventories of products or materials | 14 |
| Inventory medical supplies or equipment | 10 |
| Inventory materials or equipment | 5 |
| Monitor resources | 4 |
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.