Monitor equipment gauges or displays to ensure proper operation
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 | 11 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings (4.A.1.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 11 occupations that perform it.
- Monitor gauges, warning devices, and control panels to verify aircraft performance and to regulate engine speed.
- Monitor gauges or meters that measure speed, amperage, battery charge, or air pressure in brake lines or in main reservoirs.
- Monitor oil, temperature, and pressure gauges on dashboards to determine if engines are operating safely and efficiently.
- Read pressure and temperature gauges or displays and record data in engineering logs.
- Read gauges to verify sufficient levels of hydraulic fluid, air pressure, or oxygen.
- Start aircraft and observe gauges, meters, and other instruments to detect evidence of malfunctions.
- Observe conveyor operations and monitor lights, dials, and gauges to maintain specified operating levels and to detect equipment malfunctions.
- Observe equipment gauges and indicators and hand signals of other workers to verify load positions or depths.
- Monitor meters and pressure gauges to determine consumption rate variations, temperatures, and pressures.
- Monitor gauges and flowmeters and inspect equipment to ensure that tank levels, temperatures, chemical amounts, and pressures are at specified levels, reporting abnormalities as necessary.
- Monitor control panels during pumping operations to ensure that materials are being pumped at the correct pressure, density, rate, and concentration.
- Read gas meters, and maintain records of the amounts of gas received and dispensed from holders.
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
11 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers
- Aviation Inspectors
- Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels
- Conveyor Operators and Tenders
- Gas Compressor and Gas Pumping Station Operators
- Hoist and Winch Operators
- Locomotive Engineers
- Pump Operators, Except Wellhead Pumpers
- Railroad Brake, Signal, and Switch Operators and Locomotive Firers
- Sailors and Marine Oilers
- Wellhead Pumpers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Monitor equipment operation”. 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.