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 this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 35 occupations that perform it.
- Monitor and operate communications systems, such as mobile radios.
- Monitor equipment to ensure proper operation.
- Test and adjust communication and alarm systems, and report malfunctions to maintenance units.
- Inspect meters for unauthorized connections, defects, and damage, such as broken seals.
- Start machines that automatically feed plates, stencils, or tapes through mechanisms, and observe machine operations to detect any malfunctions.
- Monitor machine operation, and make adjustments as necessary to ensure proper operation.
- Observe work and monitor gauges, dials, and other indicators to ensure that operators conform to production or processing standards.
- Check equipment to ensure that it meets health and safety regulations, and perform maintenance or cleaning, as necessary.
- Manipulate controls and observe dial indicators to monitor, adjust, and regulate speeds of machine mechanisms.
- Monitor the feed and speed of machines during the machining process.
- Observe meters, gauges, or machine operations to ensure that soldering or brazing processes meet specifications.
- Observe gauges to ensure that machines are operating properly, making adjustments or stopping machines when problems occur.
- Monitor automated press operation systems and respond to fault, error, or alert messages.
- Observe display screens, control panels, equipment, and cloth entering or exiting processes to determine if equipment is operating correctly.
- Observe bobbins as they are winding and cut threads to remove loaded bobbins, using knives.
- Observe machine operations, control boards, and gauges to detect malfunctions such as clogged bushings and defective binder applicators.
- Monitor sawing machines, adjusting speed and tension and clearing jams to ensure proper operation.
- Monitor all systems for normal running conditions, performing activities such as checking gauges to assess output or the effects of generator loading on other 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
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.