Monitor work environment to ensure safety or adherence to specifications
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 | 6 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 6 occupations that perform it.
- Inspect facilities, machinery, or safety equipment to identify and correct potential hazards, and to ensure safety regulation compliance.
- Follow ethical codes that protect the confidentiality of information.
- Maintain a safe working environment by monitoring safety procedures and equipment.
- Monitor field work to ensure proper performance and use of materials.
- Check passenger and cargo distributions and fuel amounts to ensure that weight and balance specifications are met.
- Observe loading or unloading of cargo or equipment to ensure that handling and storage are performed according to specifications.
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
6 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
- Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels
- First-Line Supervisors of Helpers, Laborers, and Material Movers, Hand
- First-Line Supervisors of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators
- Health and Safety Engineers, Except Mining Safety Engineers and Inspectors
- Interpreters and Translators
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Monitor safety or security of work areas, facilities, or properties”. 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.