Monitor equipment operation to ensure proper functioning.
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 | 35 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings (4.A.1.a.2) |
What could do this work.
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.
Who does this work.
35 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Bakers
- Billing and Posting Clerks
- Biomass Power Plant Managers
- Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels
- Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Computer Numerically Controlled Tool Operators
- Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders
- Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Extruding and Forming Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Synthetic and Glass Fibers
- Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers
- Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders
- Gas Plant Operators
- Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers
- Machinists
- Mail Clerks and Mail Machine Operators, Except Postal Service
- Meter Readers, Utilities
- Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Nuclear Power Reactor Operators
- Office Machine Operators, Except Computer
- Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers
- Plating Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Potters, Manufacturing
- Power Distributors and Dispatchers
- Power Plant Operators
- Printing Press Operators
- Public Safety Telecommunicators
- Pump Operators, Except Wellhead Pumpers
- Rolling Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Sawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Wood
- Stationary Engineers and Boiler Operators
- Textile Bleaching and Dyeing Machine Operators and Tenders
- Textile Winding, Twisting, and Drawing Out Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- 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.