Monitor inventories of products or materials
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 | 14 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 14 occupations that perform it.
- Monitor inventory levels of products or materials in warehouses.
- Monitor shipments to ensure that goods come in on time, and resolve problems related to undelivered goods.
- Monitor or trace the location of goods.
- Track product flow from origin to final delivery.
- Inventory stock and reorder when inventory drops to a specified level.
- Inventory stock and reorder when inventories drop to specified levels.
- Locate and label parts, and maintain inventory of stock.
- Inventory stock and requisition new stock.
- Check stock levels and reorder merchandise as necessary.
- Monitor inventory levels and requisition or purchase supplies as needed.
- Determine if inventory quantities are sufficient for needs, ordering more materials when necessary.
- Check inventory records to determine availability of requested merchandise.
- Inventory and order materials, supplies, and services.
- Take inventory or examine merchandise to identify items to be reordered or replenished.
- Maintain and review computerized or manual records of purchased items, costs, deliveries, product performance, and inventories.
- Monitor inventory transactions at warehouse facilities to assess receiving, storage, shipping, or inventory integrity.
- Review inventory and sales records to prepare reports for management and budget departments.
- Study sales records and inventory levels of current stock to develop strategic purchasing programs that facilitate employee access to supplies.
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
14 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Customs Brokers
- First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers
- First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers
- First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
- Logistics Analysts
- Office Clerks, General
- Order Clerks
- Parts Salespersons
- Procurement Clerks
- Purchasing Agents, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products
- Retail Salespersons
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
- Stockers and Order Fillers
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers
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 availability of equipment or supplies | 10 |
| 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.