Move products, materials, or equipment between work areas
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 | 19 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Performing General Physical Activities (4.A.3.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 19 occupations that perform it.
- Remove articles such as cabinets, metal furniture, and paint containers from stripping tanks after prescribed periods of time.
- Pack finished assemblies for shipment, and transport them to storage areas, using hoists or handtrucks.
- Push racks or carts to transfer products to storage, cooling stations, or the next stage of processing.
- Place products on carts or conveyors to transfer them to the next stage of processing.
- Place products on conveyors or carts, and monitor product flow.
- Transport metal ingots to storage areas, using forklifts.
- Obtain and move specified patterns to work stations, manually or using hoists, and secure patterns to machines, using wrenches.
- Transfer components, metal products, or assemblies, using moving equipment.
- Participate in nuclear fuel element handling activities, such as preparation, transfer, loading, or unloading.
- Transfer materials, supplies, and products between work areas, using moving equipment and hand tools.
- Transfer equipment, objects, or parts to specified work areas, using moving devices.
- Transfer materials, supplies, or products between work areas, using moving equipment or hand tools.
- Transport items to work or storage areas, using carts.
- Move stock or scrap to and from machines manually, or by using carts, handtrucks, or lift trucks.
- Move materials, supplies, components, and finished products between storage and work areas, using work aids such as racks, hoists, and handtrucks.
- Transport materials and products to and from work areas, manually or using carts, handtrucks, or hoists.
- Load and unload equipment chambers and transport finished product to storage or to area for further processing.
- Transport materials, supplies, and finished products between storage and work areas, using forklifts.
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
19 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Adhesive Bonding Machine Operators and Tenders
- Crushing, Grinding, and Polishing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Cutters and Trimmers, Hand
- Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Electrical and Electronic Equipment Assemblers
- Extruding, Forming, Pressing, and Compacting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders
- Food Batchmakers
- Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders
- Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders
- Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand
- Helpers--Painters, Paperhangers, Plasterers, and Stucco Masons
- Helpers--Production Workers
- Mixing and Blending Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
- Molding, Coremaking, and Casting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Nuclear Power Reactor Operators
- Pourers and Casters, Metal
- Semiconductor Processing Technicians
- Welding, Soldering, and Brazing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Move materials, equipment, or supplies”. 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.